Welcome to the City of St.

Petersburg City Council meeting.

Your elected officials are Mayor Ken Welch.

District 1 and Council Chair Copley Gurtis.

District 2, Brandy Gabbert.

District 3, Mike Harding.

District 4.

And Council Vice Chair, Lesette Hanowitz.

District 5, Deborah Fake Sanders.

District 6, Gina Driscoll.

District 7, Corey Givens Jr.

And District 8, Richie Floyd.

Good afternoon.

We're going to call to order the November 13th, 2025 City Council meeting.

Could we do a roll call, please?

Harding.

Sanders.

Here.

Here.

Givens?

Here.

Lloyd.

Gurtis.

Here.

Here.

Okay.

Thank you.

Today we will have our invocation given by Reverend JC Pritchett from the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance of Florida, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

Everybody would join me in standing.

Let's pray.

We approach you, creative all with a spirit of gratefulness.

We're grateful that your hand of protection has kept us safe this season from the rains, winds, and power of the hurricane.

It could have been another way, but you have kept us.

We're grateful for a city government and organizations and individuals who step in with food resources and kindness during the federal shutdown, lay off, delayed benefits, and paychecks.

Thank you for keeping us.

It could have been another way.

As we approach this season of Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas, remind us afresh of how blessed we are, so that we may remain in the spirit of appreciation and gratefulness.

Be with those who lead and serve in public service, be with their families and loved ones.

We're grateful hearts and minds we pray.

Amen.

I pledge.

Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands.

One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Please be seated.

Rev, thank you for that invocation.

Thank you for joining us.

Okay.

Council members, we have an agenda in front of us with the addition of D6B and D eight.

I'll entertain a motion for approval.

Move approval.

Second.

We have a motion and a second on the agenda.

Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak.

Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting?

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing as all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally and announce the vote.

Mr.

Chair, the motion to approve the agenda passes unanimously.

Okay, council members.

We have a consent agenda.

Clerk, do we have any cards?

Ours, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, we have a consent agenda in front of us.

I'll entertain a motion for approval.

Move approval.

Second.

We have a motion and a second on the consent agenda.

Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak.

Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting?

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote.

Mr.

Chair, motion to approve the consent agenda passes unanimously.

Okay, thank you.

All right, we're gonna move into open forum.

Clerk, could you please read the rules?

Yes.

If you wish to address city council on subjects other than public hearing or quasal judicial items listed on the agenda, please sign up with the clerk.

Only the individual wishing to speak may sign the open forum.

She only city residents, owners of property, business owners in the city, or their employees may speak.

All issues discussed under open forum must be limited to issues related to the city of St.

Petersburg government.

If you are speaking to an item on the agenda, you may only speak once during the open forum when the item comes up on the agenda.

In order to provide an opportunity for all citizens to address council, each individual will be given three minutes to speak, and after which the microphone will be muted.

If you wish to address city council through the Zoom meeting, you must use a raise hand feature button in the Zoom app or enter star nine on your phone at the time the agenda item is addressed.

When is your turn to speak?

You'll be unmuted and actually state your name and address.

And at the conclusion of your comments or when you reach the three-minute limit, time limit, you will be muted.

All raised hands will be lowered after each agenda item, regardless of the method of participation used, normal rules apply, including including the three-minute time limit on comments.

The requirement that any presentation materials must be submitted in advance of the meeting and the rulers of the quorum.

If live public comment is disrupted by violations of the rule of the quorum, the chair has authorized to accept public comment by alternate means, including by email only, and we do have some speakers, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, let's call two at a time, please.

First two speakers, Professor Perry G.

Washington, Ron Danner.

Please approach either podium, state your name and address.

You'll have three minutes to address City Council.

Are you are you staying seated, Dr.

Washington?

We can provide that if you're staying seated with the stand.

Over there.

Says that Dr.

Washington, please state your name and your address.

Perry G.

Washington.

I'm working right here as a human rights civil rights activist for what I've been doing over 40 years.

Please state your address, Dr.

Washington.

Fifth and second.

Fifth and second what?

Street North.

Thank you.

I want the mic.

I had the mic last week.

It's necessary for me.

Are you gonna give it to me or not?

I had it last week.

This is what is wrong with this city.

Hold on a second, Dr.

Washington.

Pause the clock, please.

My time is I asked them to pause it, Dr.

Washington.

It's been joking away in entire time.

You would you like to see the email from ADA?

Give me my three minutes.

Whatever you did last week, do it today.

Dr.

Washington, I'd ask that you please be respectful to our employees.

Okay.

We're trying to give you the response.

I'm speaking.

I'm a man, not a boy.

And I didn't speak to you like one.

No.

First of all, you work for me.

I don't work for you.

I asked what I should have already have.

Last week I had it.

I had to beg for it this week.

I'm a man.

Your time has started again, Dr.

Washington.

And that is not at three minutes.

I gave you an extra 34 seconds.

Please go ahead.

All right.

First of all, I was arrested on my own property.

By the city police.

A neighbor put a fence in my yard.

The city police watched them in his courts.

Destroy my coin fence.

I came on the 22nd of March and reported it to you.

I told you eight months later, before they would drop it, and they dropped it.

One of you, so much concerned about procedure, gonna order they have an investigation behind this deputy.

I'm a United States veteran.

I can just pin the earth for your name.

But I'm not cannot defend my property.

You claim.

White men do not exist on this earth.

The only didn't be the owner.

Every day there had to be a black man.

Because men make women.

Women make men telling me my property, not mine, like telling Dave Fix, standard heck.

She bought it not hers.

I will be in your right to begin.

The real rights.

Salute that ray!

But it is not public.

Despite and get room.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr.

Diner.

Thanks for pausing before we get the clock right.

Thank you.

I'm Ron Diner and I live on Snell Isle.

I'm here to address the mayor's proposed 30-day process to solicit gas plant proposals and is plan to extend it and explain why this is not legal, why the responsibility in your capacity as the commissioners of the CAR CRA lies in this responsibility relies with you.

And beyond legality, this is simply how smart cities handle major public land.

Let me start with the core fact.

The mayor cannot legally initiate this 30-day process without you, and he absolutely cannot extend it.

You control the process, and what is being proposed is not legal.

And proceeding this way opens up the real possibility of a lawsuit triggered in the best interest of the citizens of St.

Pete.

Under statute 1638, the 30-day dose applies only after the city, meaning you have already received a determination of fair value, a specific contract the city is prepared to accept, and a redevelopment plan for the 86 acres.

You cannot begin the process.

You cannot even consider the 30-day notice without having the actual contract in front of you.

You must see the price, the public benefits, the developers' obligations, infrastructure responsibilities, et cetera, et cetera.

Without that, the process cannot begin legally or practically.

And here's the unavoidable truth.

You cannot determine fair value without knowing what the land is worth.

It is a formal public act by this council, one that requires an appraisal or professional valuation.

No CRA in Florida makes a fair value determination without appraisal.

No auditor to accept otherwise.

No court would uphold otherwise.

Yet today there is no contract, no terms, no valuation, no appraisal, and no public interest analysis.

So you cannot legally make the determination the statute requires.

And without that determination, you cannot legally start the statutory 30-day notice, and you certainly can't extend it.

The 30 days are fixed by law.

And now, and what about how smart cities do this?

Cities that successfully develop major parcels of land.

Plan first, define the public framework, then solicit proposals, then negotiate from strength.

And the best CRAs in Florida follow that model.

Council, you're the safeguard.

You make fair valuation determination.

You approve the contract.

You adopt the development plan, and you protect the public interest, and you, not the mayor, decides what this when the process begins.

The mayor cannot start the statutory 30-day notice without you.

He can't extend it, and you cannot approve a contract that does not exist, especially when none of the information required to determine fair value exists.

Your authority, your responsibility, and the future of the city depends on it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next two speakers, please.

Next two speakers, Robin Davido, Ben Winder.

Please approach our podium, state your name and address.

You have three minutes to address city council.

Hi.

Thank you.

My name is Robin David of 4830 Osprey Drive South.

Good afternoon, Council members.

My name is Robin Davidov, and I'm here on behalf of the 450 members of the League of Women Voters of the St.

Petersburg area.

I'm speaking today about the procurement of a private developer for the historic gas plant property.

Our request is simple.

Go forward, not back, and plan first.

As the governing body for the community redevelopment area, the city council serves as trustee, both for the land and for the financial resources.

With that authority comes a legal and fiduciary duty to ensure redevelopment follows the adopted CRA plan.

Issuing an RFP of a four community-based master plan is complete, would in effect delegate or diminish that core responsibility.

Let's look at the requirements.

Under the Intown Redevelopment Plan, no parcel in the CRA can be sold or leased unless it is consistent with the adopted plan, reflects fair market value, and complies with all zoning design and public benefit requirements.

The current plan identifies the new baseball stadium, commits 500 million dollars in public funds to a stadium and leaves an empty outline for everything else.

Clearly, it is not compliant.

Appraisals must be based on the property's highest and best use.

How are we going to determine that without a real master plan?

An 80-acre site also requires specific zoning, design standards, and public benefits before any sale or lease can occur.

None of those are in place.

Many other cities in Florida and elsewhere have taken a smarter path.

They hire expert master planners to work with residents, defining street grids, housing types, open spaces, and sustainability standards, as well as financing strategies.

Only after that planning is done, do they invite developers to submit proposals?

The league, along with other community partners, would like to sponsor City Council workshop to learn from award-winning master planners how other cities have successfully redeveloped public land while protecting taxpayers and earning community trust.

Finally, a May 2024 Mason Dixon poll found that 86% of St.

Petersburg voters believe the city should obtain an independent, updated appraisal before selling or leasing this land.

The result shows a deep concern about whether taxpayers are getting their full and fair value.

Council members, the public is asking you to plan first.

Let's move forward, not back.

Thank you.

Hello, I am Ben Winder.

I live at 765 85th Avenue North, and I'm the pastor of First Baptist Church at 1900 Gandhi Boulevard North.

I'm coming today to highlight once again for council the importance that we continue to invest our public dollars in affordable housing for those who make 80% of the area median income or less.

Uh to be suggested to the Housing Land Use and Transportation Committee that some of you are aware of, that we would work together to set a goal as our city over the next five years to average at least 500 units for those making 80% AMI or less.

And I hope that when it comes to the committee, and then when it makes it here back to the full council, that each of you will support that.

Also want to highlight that much of the conversation has been about whether we do workforce housing.

That is subsidizing housing for those making even more than the area median income, up to 120%.

And let me encourage you that that is not the same as affordable housing.

Research shows from the Schimberg Center and others that the one area of housing that we have a glut of supply of is for those making 100 to 120% of the area median income.

We should not be spending public dollars on building more of that.

What we need to support is building housing for those making 80% of the area meeting income or less, because that is where the need is.

Thank you for your support of this, and I hope that it will pass quickly so we can continue to build housing for all here in St.

Petersburg.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next two speakers, please.

Next two speakers, Mr.

Chair.

Oscar Banks, Luis Ortiz.

Please approach our podium.

State your name and address.

You'll have three minutes to address City Council.

Oscar Banks 2437, 15th Avenue South and Pastor of Palm Lake Christian Church at 5401 22nd Avenue North.

As an active uh member of this community, one who uh is has recently moved.

Uh I say recently, we started pastoring here uh at the start of the pandemic.

Uh I have fallen in love with St.

Petersburg and hope to retire here uh in St.

Petersburg.

But one thing that I do not enjoy is to see our city not putting the most vulnerable among us as its priority.

Uh when we look at a city, if we look at a country, if we look at a nation, we recognize that a nation, a country, a city, is only as strong as it cares for its most vulnerable.

I love what Isaiah says.

Uh, he actually says this in Isaiah 1, 16 through 17 in the NIV, he says, wash and make yourselves clean.

Take your evil deeds out of my sight, stop doing wrong.

Learn to do right, seek justice, defend the oppressed, take up the cause of the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.

As members of FAS, as a member of the FAST organization, we recognize that if we're not standing for justice, if we're not doing justice, then what are we doing?

People of faith, which majority of you are people of faith.

What are we doing if we're only using our public dollars to provide housing for those that don't need public dollars to provide housing for themselves?

It is on the task of the city to make housing affordable for those who are making 80% of the area median income or less.

Those are the most vulnerable among us right now.

So why are we dragging our feet?

Why are we not wanting to commit to numbers when we're seeing mayors and cities and city governments all across this nation that are making clear commitments?

So I hope that when this next resolution is lifted up that causes our city to make a commitment to the people of this city, I pray that each and every one of you makes a commitment to fall in line and to support your citizens, your people, the people who voted you in, the people who really love this city, but who can no longer afford to live here?

And I'm not just saying that as a as a old loud pastor.

I'm saying that as somebody who is actually putting our land in the face of this, who's putting our land on the line, who's putting our church on the line with so many other members of the community saying, No, don't build housing for that community.

But why not?

It's our people.

It's the people we live with, it's the people we work with, it's the people who teach our children.

That's who we're fighting for.

We're not fighting for the filthy rich.

They can fight for themselves, but we do have to stand up for those who are most vulnerable in our community.

I ask that you stand up with us as we stand for them.

Amen.

Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Lewis Ortiz.

I am also a member of FACT.

I go to King of Peace Church.

And I am also a tenant of affordable income housing.

Okay.

So I want to talk to you firsthand about what you're doing.

Could you please give us your address?

My address is 3155 Burlington Avenue North.

Thank you very much.

So I would like to speak with you as a tenant who lives in affordable income housing.

When I first moved there, my rent was $350 less than what it is today.

I've been living there three and a half years.

So I did that, and I've been working ever since.

My rent has gone up, and now I'm worried that I may not be able to stop working if I have to live there.

I'm 72 years old.

I'll be 73 years old this uh this year.

And I have seen other tenants in my building whose furniture has been put out because they have to leave because they can't afford to pay the rent anymore.

Uh who knows where they had to live.

And I am concerned that my initial uh ability to work, I'm I happen to be very, very healthy and I can work, but there are many people my age who cannot work and cannot afford the increases that are happening in affordable income housing.

So I'm here to fight or to ask you to fight on our behalf because it is very necessary, the the housing issue for our community.

We need uh our I need my neighbors to stay where they are, uh not be forced to move or leave the community or the city because the rents have been increasing to the point where they can no longer afford to pay them.

The median income uh keeps going up.

All around me, you have developments in spare uh land where townhouses, condos are going up.

Uh right around me, there's uh townhouses that are going for $700,000 and $900,000, and what that in turn means that the people that can afford to live there make a lot more money than uh than the general population.

And that increases the median income level, and that increases the rents.

So affordable income housing is something that's very important to me, to my neighbors, to the community, the people who live here, and the people who vote for you as well.

So please support affordable income housing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next two speakers, please.

Next two speakers, Phyllis Young, Peter Kent, please approach on the podium.

You have three minutes to address city council.

My name is Phyllis Young.

I live at 2446, Lynn Blake Circle South, apartment B, 33712.

I'm here on behalf of FAST to speak on the affordability crisis that we in the city of St.

Pete are experiencing.

Personal story.

Sold her house that she lived in for 35 years because she couldn't afford the upkeep.

Her son was actually paying her insurance, and then he notified her that he was no longer going to be able to do that because he has a college-age student, and he just didn't have that much money because the insurance was going up also.

In the meantime, she sold the house, looking for some place to live, uh, an apartment, not able to find something affordable.

And the places that were affordable had waiting lists two, three years.

She ended up moving to Tampa to live with her son.

The problem here in St.

Petersburg is too many of our citizens are having to leave because they cannot afford to live here.

You know the statistics.

I don't need to tell you.

All I can tell you is that something has to be done.

And we look to you, our elected officials, to help your community.

Build affordable housing.

Build it for us.

Our motto is affordable for who.380.

Disposal of property in a community development area.

Subsection one state sales quote may be made only after the approval of community redevelopment plan or CRP.

The CRP must include, quote, the contracts with respect to the therefore two of the residential recreational, commercial, industrial, educational, and other uses.

None of these requirements have yet been met.

Subsection two states, quote, in the event that the value of the real property being disposed of is less than the fair value, such disposition shall be required in approval by the governing bottery followed by a public hearing.

This means the city must first obtain a current appraisals based on the approved CRP, which I believe will be in the 600 to 1 billion dollar range.

Then the public hearing must show a detailed list of the amount the city is contributing to subsidize each of the proposed improvements, such as affordable workforce and senior housing, new stadium and removal of the old one, roads and utilities, museum, convention, education centered community amenities in order to prove that the property is quote being disposed of not being disposed of for less than nuclear value.

Subsection three requires the city to quote make all pertinent information available to private developers and give them at least 30 days to respond and to consider the legal and financial ability of the person speaking making the proposals to carry them out.

End quote.

This legally required process protects the taxpayer, encourages fair competition, and encourages the final redevelopment, honors both the historic gas plant community and the city's long-term economic goals.

Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you.

Next to speakers.

No more speakers, Mr.

Chair.

Okay.

All right.

We'll go ahead and close open forum and we're going to move into awards and presentations.

Yeah.

Sorry if I share.

We're going to have one more speaker.

Is it Zendel?

Yes.

Zendale from Noah, please go to either podium, state your name and address for the record.

Yeah, Mr.

Um 5271, 77th Street North.

I'm sorry, you have to be a resident or work in the city.

Well, I'm at 2300, 33rd Street South as well.

Through 712.

Thank you.

And I'm sorry, did you state your name?

Zandale.

Thank you.

Yes.

I've been coming here for the last two months.

And we're stating on about this housing.

And I complain, like the gentleman said, Saratoga apartments, over 20 some thousand dollars of a lot of stuff.

Set it out on the curve.

And I came from Georgia to pick it up on time.

You haul's there.

Nothing's never been done about it.

But the thing about the homeless here, we all ride down these streets.

It's the epidemic here of drugs.

And it needs to be stopped.

If people could pay $1,600 a month with two, three kids in a motel room.

That's rent for a house.

We need affordable housing.

They're not getting educated.

They don't have sleep at night.

Everybody's in one crapped up space.

It's not fair.

And this city has always been a good city.

But taking care of its people.

But it starts from the church.

Thank you, Pastor, and it starts right here and it goes up.

It don't come from the top and goes down.

We all left behind.

And it's not fair.

And this city needs to do something about it.

You got people, road raging, 100 miles an hour.

Charge 200 for a ticket with big trucks running you up.

Everybody front in his cars, dent on cell phones.

Charge 150 tickets.

Revenue comes from everywhere.

Just not from the poor in the vulnerable.

And that's how this city needs to see it to me.

All these medians in the street, red lights holding up.

That's a waste.

You're tearing down the palm trees.

Years ago, before I left to go to landlord, New York.

You took you put all those palm trees on the highway.

Hurricane City.

Why?

Now you're tearing them down.

Not keeping it up.

Give tickets going down there and clean it up.

Insurance companies don't want to insure people houses.

That's in low end ground.

Put new pipes in.

Money could go elsewhere.

Then all these high-rises apartment that we can't afford to live in.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay.

Now we're going to close the open forum and we're going to move into awards and presentations.

And we're going to start with D1, a distinguished citizen award.

And this is given to us by Vice Chair Hanowitz.

Vice Chair, welcome.

Thank you, Chair.

If I can ask Mr.

Jim Base to come over here and join me.

You're welcome.

So good afternoon, everyone.

I'm honored to take this moment during today's council meeting to recognize a truly extraordinary member of our community, Jim Bays.

Jim Bays is a professional lake and wetland scientist with more than 45 years of experience using natural treatment systems to improve stormwater and wastewater.

He earned his bachelor's in environmental biology from Ohio University in 1976 and a master's in environmental engineering sciences from the University of Florida in 1983.

Recently retired from CH2 M.

Hill and Jacobs Engineering.

A Tampa Bay resident since 1988 and a Crescent Heights resident since 2005.

Jim has provided guidance on Crescent Lake Management since 2007.

Today he continues his passion for community-based restoration as president of stewards of our urban lakes, which is Seoul, a 501c3 nonprofit.

Jim's career began as a field ecologist, specializing in plant and animal identification.

Over time, he advanced to senior principal and fellow technologists, and ultimately served as global technology leader in natural treatment systems.

While his work took him around the globe, he remained closely connected to St.

Petersburg.

He led the Lake Major Restoration Project from 1989 to 1993 and supported the city's water use permitting from 1995 to 1998.

In recent years, his organization, Seoul has received multiple awards for a community-based restoration projects, including two Golden Mangrove Awards from the Tampa Bay Estuary Program and two environmental awards from the City Beautification Commission.

In 2024, Jim was especially honored to receive the outstanding volunteer award from the Florida Lake Management Society.

Jim informed me he has been fortunate enough to work alongside many dedicated city employees.

Among those who have been especially instrumental to Seoul's success are Claude Tankersley, Michael Perry, Barbara Stahlberg, Maven Rogers, Adole Jaitz, and Kathy Markowitz.

He is also grateful for the significant support of City Council.

Jim, we're so lucky to have you in our city.

Thank you for your dedication and preserving the ecological health of our urban lakes, improving water quality, restoring our wildlife habitat, and empowering and educating our community.

On behalf of the city of St.

Petersburg, I'm proud to present you with a distinguished citizen award, which I will now read.

Whereas a great city is only as great as those persons who give exemplary service to their communities, whether through participation in volunteer programs, through unique personal achievement, their profession or other endeavors, or simply through a lifetime of good citizensry.

And whereas such service that is truly the lifeblood of the community and the city so often goes unrecognized and unrewarded.

Now, therefore, as a duly elected member of the St.

Petersburg City Council, I hereby recognize that in Jim Bay's, we have an outstanding citizen, one who is worthy of the esteem of both the community and the great city of St.

Petersburg, Florida.

Thank you, Jim, so much for your question.

Yes, of course.

Well, thank you.

That's uh quite an introduction.

Uh good thing that in these kind of events, uh it's very, you know, it's a very uh unexpected and uh gratifying experience for me.

And so it's hard to remember the words that you want to say.

Good for you that I wrote them down here.

So thank you so much.

This is a real honor.

I'm deeply deeply touched.

First, my thanks to all the members of the city council for this recognition for your confidence and appreciation.

Special thanks to Councilwoman Seth Hanowitz, uh Gina Driscoll, and Copley Gerdis for all their support and continuing support for all things Seoul.

I also want to gladly acknowledge the support, interest, and what I like to call the benefit of the doubt that the city administration has shown as we've moved our projects forward.

My gratitude goes to Claude Tankersley, Maven Rogers, Michael Perry, Barbara Stalbert, uh Adole Yates, Kathy Markovitz, each of whom has shown patience, helpful, and have been willing to work with me as we've learned together how to make our lakes better.

Of course, I couldn't do any of this without my many friends and teammates, the sole member of the board of directors, many of whom are here today, our amazing lake champions, and all my neighbors on 24th Avenue North who keep hearing us on and occasionally reminding me to take a day off.

Finally, the biggest thanks of all go to my lovely wife Connie, my daughter Lindy, for their extended and unconditional support.

They've endured a lot of lake talk at dinner.

And maybe just one guy with an idea whether urban lakes are an opportunity and not a burden, but thanks to the encouragement and effort of so many people, these ideas are becoming a reality.

I couldn't be more appreciative.

Thank you very much.

And Chair, I think uh the public works administrator, Clark Tanakh wants to say a couple of words.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It is with great pleasure that we recognize uh Jim here today.

And and I want those of you who might not be aware of the program that he runs of how important it is to the city.

It is so extremely important.

From the administration point of view, we have the responsibility to uh manage all 88 80 plus lakes that we have in the city, and that's a big lift.

And there's no way we could do it without Jim and his volunteers and the work that they do, and and oftentimes Jim, I'll have somebody come up to me and say, Hey, I noticed this lake is looking really, really good.

What are y'all doing?

I'm like, Well, that's Jim and Seoul and the volunteers, and it it wouldn't look that way without you and your board and your volunteers.

And so thank you very much.

I don't know if you have to stay here or there.

Okay, thank you so much, Jim.

Well, Jim, um, just from District One, a big thank you.

I know you spend a bunch of time uh in Walter Fuller, and so uh just so thankful for all you do over there to help our to help my district and and jungle terrace neighborhood and frankly all the neighborhoods that surround that wonderful park, and I know you're doing it across the city, but I'm gonna be selfish and just talk about that one for a second, and just the work that you've done and the projects that you've created there.

It doesn't go unnoticed, just like Claude said, and we're just so thankful to have you not only in the in the in uh district one but throughout the city helping us with our lakes and uh very well-deserved award.

Congratulations.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And I just want to say a shout out for those of you that are here are interested in volunteering.

Yeah, you can look up Saul your waiters on.

Oh, put your waiters on.

That's absolutely true.

They do work all around the city and really not just not just with the community, but with students and schools, and it's just really great work that's being done.

So reach out to Jim, or you can look them up at store stores of urban our urban lakes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Okay.

One more time.

Let's see if the news.

All right.

So now we're gonna move on to D2, which is our community-oriented policing program of the year.

Uh, and so we've got our St.

PPD District 2 Community Service Unit.

And I think Samaria is the mayor.

Vice Chair Hanowitz, you want to lead us off, and then we'll go to the mayor.

Yes, I'll lead you all off.

Um, first of all, uh, I just wanted to acknowledge, and y'all could you could stand there.

Um, our district two community service officers, and you could see them very beautifully dressed in their tuxedos and outfits in the picture.

Um our community-orented oriented policing program in District 21 program of the year through the Tampa Bay Area Chiefs of Police Foundation.

So please give them a round of applause.

So the team is led by Sergeant Deary.

Um, and I believe um they have most of the team here, some are not here anymore because they've they're still working with the police department, but they're in some other departments.

Um, thank you for joining us.

We're thrilled to recognize that your unit, the district two community service unit, um, comprised of a powerhouse team.

I'm gonna name everyone, Officer Patrick McGovern, Officer Van, Officer Reeder, Officer Landis, Officer Schweiger Swiger, Officer Exantis, Officer Fuchs, and Officer Martinez.

They were honored with the community-oriented policing program of the year award by the Tampa Bay Area Chiefs of Police Station.

And by the way, here's the one thing I want to add, and I I have to add this.

So let's give him a round of applause.

So I want to say, as a former state and federal prosecutor, I've had the privilege of working with law enforcement for many years.

And what the community typically doesn't see is the work that they do day in and day out there with our community.

And the best police work is some of the work that you never see.

And this is the type of award that they received for this type of work.

This award acknowledges that.

So that's why I'm so proud to stand here and recognize our district two committee service officers on this award.

They listen, they care, they commit themselves, they solve problems that sometimes seem overwhelming.

They did that in a specific area in District 2 that had a lot of issues for a very long time.

There was an area that had problems that did not just take the police department to work on those problems, but it also took many city departments, including social services, codes compliance, and the fire marshal's office and the legal department to work together to solve the issue.

And they found a solution to make sure that folks in the area had the resources that they needed.

That balance of accountability and compassion is what makes you exceptional.

And clearly, I'm not the only one that thought so because you were given this award, and it came from an organization that represents not just Pinellas, but I believe, and the chief can correct me if I'm wrong, eight counties in the Tampa Bay area.

Imagine all the departments in those counties, and the this group got the award.

What does that tell you about the people that serve you?

So thank you for the work that you do.

Your leaders, not just because of this, but because of every day, how you help the community.

I've seen it firsthand.

I've seen it at the neighborhood meetings.

I know our fellow council members have seen it too.

And I just wanted to make sure it didn't go unrecognized.

So that's why you're here today.

So thank you from the bottom of my heart and from City Council.

We really appreciate you.

Chief, did you want to say anything?

Yes.

First, I'd like to thank the Vice Chair Hanowich for recognizing the work that these men and women do each and every day.

You know, like I said, we're very proud for eight counties for these men and women to be selected for what they've done.

And like I said earlier, we can't do what we do thanks to the mayor, thanks to the city council, because officers are the police department sheriffs ask us how do we do what we do?

And we do what we do because we have support from you.

So I just want to say thank you very much.

And again, these men and women, they do things that uh all times of night, all time in the morning.

They flexed our hours just to desert uh take care of the community.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Don't go anywhere yet.

Councilmember Harding.

Thank you, Chair.

Chief, we have had the opportunity to celebrate some progressive things the department has done with the the call program and the path team.

In this case, um, we're talking about a program that uh that's already in existence.

The difference is that your team just does it better than everyone else.

And um, and that is um for for those of you that that that don't know.

Community policing is uh is it is a program that works its way out.

The the folks that you're looking at don't just answer calls, they answer calls and get to know people and try and find the the root of the problem and or the issue and uh and continue to work the problem so that it isn't a problem.

It's a it's an ongoing process, and they are very good at it.

And chief, you're gonna work yourself out of a job.

This will be the third time I've told you.

Um, but uh but couldn't be start working right of uh Sergeant Deerie and his team, and thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna move on to D3, which is the recognition of the St.

Pete Yacht Club Junior Sailing Team.

And uh, we're gonna go to Vice Chair Hanowitz and the mayor.

We should give her a hat.

Thank you, Chair.

You know, I'm always thrilled to see a group of young people come together and remind us what teamwork really looks like.

And that's exactly what Thomas Widener, Dalton Salomair, Tucker Goens, Constantine, and I'm gonna I'm I'm butchering these names, I'm sure.

Constantino Conrad and Bennett Lamb of the St.

Pete Yacht Club Thunder Youth Racing Team did when they won first place in the 37th Trofeo Marco Rizzotti in Italy back in May.

So please congratulate us.

Today, we have permission from Fox 13 to play a feature that really shows how exciting this win was.

So, Clerk, if you could please play the video.

All right, now it's time for some good stuff with some smooth sailing overseas.

Yeah, and fast as well.

Team St.

Pete Yacht Club for the big win in Italy.

Great goes.

And there they go.

That is St.

Pete Yacht Club's youth sailing team representing the United States recently.

This is just two weeks ago in Italy.

In the Trofeo Marco Rosotti International Optimist team race in Venice.

There they are.

Look at that.

They won.

Special congrats to all of them.

You got Thomas Widener, Dalton Silimari, Tucker Gowins, Constantino Conrad, and Bennett Lamb.

What a win for them.

And the St.

Pete Yacht Club as well.

They have many national and international wins.

Uh, and now this one, but look at those faces out of their parents are proud.

St.

Pete's proud, the yacht club is proud.

It's a big win.

It is indeed.

What a great trip in the meantime.

For sure.

Time now for the Fox 13, 11 o'clock news.

So I would love.

So I would love Tucker, Thomas, and Bennett.

Please join me up here.

Come here.

Come on.

With your trophies.

Bring the hardware.

Bring the hardware.

Everything.

Come here.

Everybody give a round of applause.

So, and just so everyone understands what an accomplishment this is.

The Trofeo Marco Risotti is one of the most prestigious youth sailing competitions in the world, specifically for young sailors under the age of 15.

This regatta is elite.

This year it brought together 16 teams from 11 different countries around the globe to compete in fast-paced, high skills team racing, which emphasizes not only individual talent, but also strategy and seamless coordination as part of a team.

Thomas Dalton, Tucker, Constantino, and Bennett.

These young men didn't just show up to the race, they showed up to win.

But even more importantly, you showed up for each other.

And it's very easy for all of us to get caught up in our own little world.

So thank you for reminding us what success is about, and it depends on our commitment to work together.

Of course, none of this happens without the people behind the scenes.

Coach Mathias Puma Renhifo, your guidance, leadership, and belief in these sailors made all the difference.

I'm sure your lessons are going to stick with these young men for the rest of their lives.

And to the families, the teachers, the mentors at the St.

Pete Yacht Club, and in all the activities these young men do.

We see you.

As a mom, I know that it's not all smooth sailing.

The pun is intended.

The early mornings, the long drives, and long flights.

Those are all sacrifices.

So the victory also belongs to you all.

So congratulations to Thomas, Dalton Tucker, Constantino Bennett, Coach Puma, and believe we have Coach Todd Fettes here also, who was also part of it.

And to all the supporters, thank you for representing St.

Petersburg and the U.S.

in the international stage with such skill, teamwork, and determination.

You're setting a powerful example, not just for your peers, but for all of us here in St.

Petersburg, and we can't wait to see what comes next.

So, on behalf of the city of St.

Petersburg, I'm proud to present each of you with a distinguished citizen award, and I will read it to each of you.

Whereas a great city is only as great as those persons who give exemplary service through their communities, whether through participation in voluntary programs, through unique personal achievement in their profession or other endeavors, or simply through a lifetime of good citizen citizens three.

I can never say that word, right?

And whereas such service that is truly the lifeblood of the community and the city so often goes unrecognized and unrewarded.

Now, therefore, as a duly elected member of the St.

Petersburg City Council, I hereby recognize that Thomas Weidner, Dalton Salomari, Tucker Tucker Goins, Constantino Conrad, and Bennett Lamb.

We have outstanding citizens who are worthy of the esteem of both the community and the great city of St.

Petersburg, Florida.

And we have Todd Fettison, head coach of the St.

Pete Yacht Club, who will make some remarks.

So let's give them a big hand.

This is uh quite an accomplishment by these five uh five young sailors.

I've had the pleasure of knowing all five sailors since they were five to seven-year-olds when they started in our Harbor Mice sailing programs uh on the waterfront here in St.

Petersburg, Florida.

And it's been nothing but a pleasure to watch them develop as young sailors and to see the hard work that they have put into their sport and their passion to become the uh the young sailors that they are today.

I think it's important to note that this event in Italy is not an open event that they could just sign up and just attend.

They had to beat 31 other teams here domestically in the United States to qualify to represent the USA in Venice, Italy.

We were fortunate enough to host the US ODA team race uh midwinter championships here, which were the qualifier for the Marco Rosotti team race last January.

So uh we had the pleasure of watching our our gang win here on home waters to earn their birth to go sail in Italy last May.

Um, by winning last year's championship, they also earned themselves a berth to defend their championship this uh next May in 2026 uh back at the Marco Rosotti team race next year.

So keep uh keep an eye on uh on the social media feeds, keep an eye on the on the local news, and hopefully these guys are gonna be uh gonna be representing us again well next year and uh for years to come, you know, representing the St.

Pete Yaw Club, their high schools here in uh in St.

Petersburg, Florida, and uh and eventually off to college sailing at some of the top schools uh here in the United States of America.

So thank you guys very much and congratulations, guys.

And it's and it's my honor to present the mayor of St.

Petersburg, Welch.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

So St.

Pete is a city of champions, we know that, and we're always happy to celebrate our world champions.

Are these some fine young men?

Let's look at so on behalf of the city.

I'd like to present each of them.

We have an extra one for the young man who's not here.

Uh lapel pin key to the city.

We are so proud of the way you represented at St.

Pete, and we look forward to your next endeavor and your next win.

So, congratulations.

Your hands are full.

Yeah, that trophy looks heavy.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Thank you.

I just want to thank the family and everyone that was involved.

Thank you for being here.

And boys, thank you so much for continue winning and continue winning as a team.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I know all of us up here are cheering for back-to-back championships, boys.

So congratulations.

What a cool thing.

I I had some friends that uh when I was a kid, they went to Italy and sailed uh in that in that race and did not come home with the trophy.

So congratulations, what an awesome feat.

And uh we'll have you back next year when you when you now I you're gonna have to split it because I'm not sure you can carry two of those.

So I I expect you to bring them all back next year, Deal.

All right, congratulations, guys.

Okay, we're gonna move into D4, and we've got our American Public Works Association accreditation recognition, and we've got Claude, or we've gotten the mayor, excuse me.

Mayor Welch.

I don't get confused.

Claude, I'm not that well done.

It was the tie.

Thank thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

Before we begin today's recognition, I want to take a moment to express how proud and grateful we all are for our incredible city team.

St.

Pete's greatest strength is our people, and that's especially true of the talented, dedicated public servants who make this city work every single day.

From maintaining our parks and protecting our infrastructure to telling the story of St.

Pete and keeping our community informed, our employees are experts, innovators, and strategic problem solvers.

They're the reason our city continues to grow stronger, more sustainable, and more connected.

Today's recognition is our reflection of that excellence.

And you started today, uh, Mr.

Chairman, he stepped out for a second uh at 8 o'clock uh with YFS talking about the incredible things that our team does.

I want to make it clear today, though, that these awards aren't distributed by the city, they come from respected organizations and third-party entities that see what we already know.

Our team here in St.

Petersburg is doing outstanding work.

So to our marketing team, our parks and rec department, our public works administration, and to our employee Victor Gillis.

Where's is Victor in the room?

Victor Gillis, who literally saved a life and will be recognized.

Thank you for finding a missing child.

I want to say congratulations to all of these employees.

You represent the very best of who we are and what we strive to be as a city.

And on behalf of the city, the city council, and the residents of St.

Pete, we want to say thank you for your dedication, your professionalism, and the love that you have for this city.

And you are the reason we all are very proud to say we are St.

Pete.

And now let's begin our recognition and recognize our city's rock stars.

Thank you, Madam Vice Chair.

Mr.

Chair Council, I'd like to ask my directors and our staff to come up and join me.

And I I have a I do have a very brief presentation.

I will attempt to make it as brief as possible.

So I'd like to ask our staff that are holding the plaques if you can stand over, like maybe right over here so the council can see you.

Thank you very much.

So I I cannot begin this without recognizing my peer and colleague and and good friend and brother uh Mike Jeffries.

Oh God.

Because you guys have often heard that it starts in parks, but I'm grateful to say that at least for today's presentation, we're starting in public works.

Thank you, Mike.

That is a picture of a park.

What can we say?

What can we say?

Thank you, Mike.

So the uh public works administration and our departments have just been re-accredited through the American Public Works Association.

Uh we were first accredited in 2021, so this was our first re-accreditation.

The there are many benefits to being an accredited agency as our parks department and understands, as our police department understands, as our fire department understands.

Um, and uh one of them and key to it is that uh accreditation will establish an agency-wide culture of continuous improvement, and out of this culture of continuous improvement grows these other bullets that you see listed here improvements in in in uh performance and staff development in retention and standard operating procedures uh in efficiencies, communication.

It allows us to justify when we bring to you budget requests, and it increases and improves safety and training opportunities.

This uh last four-year period, so we're accredited every four years, re-accredited every four years, and during this last four-year periods, we added some new programs to the public works administration.

Well, one of them was our public works administration ethics training, where we had each and every public works employee, and we have around 870, I believe, uh, had to go through this ethics training, and it included uh opportunities to to practice um and to uh face uh situations that they might face out into the field.

Uh we also have improved our safety manuals, our training manuals through our fleet department and through your graciousness.

We've improved our ability to purchase uh bulk purchase of our vehicles, um, and we have improved our discharge permit uh discharge um um author excuse me uh notifications, uh our permitting information, and um we we've improved our coordination among the the different departments because the public works administration covers five different departments and and an office, and so there's a lot of us across the administration.

So for this this re-accreditation, uh we we did recognize four different report departments within the administration as well as the administration itself, which means that we have four agencies within the city that are accredited through APWA, and I'll I'll point out why that's important in just a few minutes.

Um we we had a three-day site visit from uh APWA national.

Um we reviewed during that process 27 different chapters, 350 different subchapters, many of those subchapters are collaborative across the administration as a whole.

We were very pleased to have 100% compliance with all of our sub chapters, uh and we were approved in one full day.

Uh we had set aside three days, but we were approved in one full day.

We are four agencies, our four departments are one of the 223 accredited public works agencies in the United States.

And so of the 223, we have four.

Those four combined make us the second largest organization in the United States after Houston, and we are the largest of the 40 agencies in the state of Florida.

We were also very pleased and and honored to um for APWA to ask us to use some of our chapters as model chapters for other agencies in the United States.

And I've listed those chapters here on this slide.

I wanted to show you this because we had a celebration the night that we learned that we were uh re-accredited, and I want to point out the smiles on people's faces there.

Um this was a very happy day.

Uh we have a very uh a close-knit group that worked hard on this, and um, we were very happy to achieve it that day.

Before I turn it over to our representative from um the APWA association, I want to give an opportunity for my directors to introduce some of the folks that you see standing here in front of you, because these are the key people within our organization that helped shepherd us forward.

It wasn't me, it wasn't our directors, it was these people, and they need to be recognized.

So I'd like to ask our directors if they would come forward and recognize the person from their staff.

So, Marshal, if you'd start.

Yes, sir.

Marshall Hampton, Stormwater Pavement Traffic Operations Director, uh Samantha Glendinning, Special Projects Manager.

Uh John Palantar, Water Resource Director of City of St.

Petersburg, and I'd like to recognize Melanie Niles, Mel for short, um, daughter of Frank Niles.

Uh so um a dear family member of our water resources staff who led us through this and really kept us on ship shape and moving forward.

Thank you, Melanie.

I'd like to thank Brittany Kippen.

Um, she is an instrumental pot in the engineering department.

Um, you know, one of the newer members who joined the team.

However, she did step forward as far as learning all the complex processes.

I'm looking through uh multiple divisions within our department to get us through.

So thank you, Brittany.

Good afternoon, Randall Johnston, fleet fleet department.

Um was a group effort.

We're a small team, uh, but we uh it was very interesting for us because we're not always part of APWA.

Um we have worked really hard.

Uh Jessa Klemma is is the uh gentleman that was in charge of putting all of our team effort together.

I I just want to recognize the team that stood behind Jesse and made us successful.

So thank you very much.

Finally, for the public works administration, Whitney Blair.

So Whitney is part of the administration, she's not one of the departments, and Whitney herded all the different cats that uh each of the other uh members uh herded, and so uh we're grateful to you for for your leadership on this.

And finally, in absentia, she's not here, but Angela Miller, you all know and and know and love Angela as much as we do.

And Angela was the one who led us through the first accreditation four years ago, and then she mentored Whitney to help lead us through this accreditation.

So we're grateful to Angela for her service.

So I'd now like to turn it over uh to Larry Ingram.

Larry is from the Region 4 of the American Public Works Association.

Florida is one of the states within Region 4, and Larry would like to share with you some more information about APWA.

Thank you.

Afternoon, Mayor, Council, uh, residents of St.

Petersburg, as Mr.

Tank Tankersley said, my name is Larry Ingram.

I have the privilege of serving as the Region Ford Director for APWA.

Uh, as a region for director, I sit on the National Board of Directors.

Uh Region 4 encompasses the states of Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas.

So I get to travel around a good bit to uh these days.

Um APWA as a whole represents over 32,000 public works professionals across the U.S.

and Canada.

And today is special because not only is this an accreditation, it's a re-accreditation.

And as Claude touched on earlier, it's uh it's a very elite group, and to have four agencies within your city is is a huge deal.

And for for anybody unfamiliar with what these departments take care of with their roughly 870 personnel, is they handle all of the administrative services of the department and the agencies.

Compliance with all state and federal permits that affect the city's infrastructure, planning, design, inspection of infrastructure construction projects, maintenance of 2150 miles of roadway and associate associated right-of-way, management of water, wastewater, stormwater systems, including 3,500 miles of water wastewater, reclaimed water, and stormwater lines, almost 46,000 manholes and catch basins, three wastewater plants and one water treatment plant.

And the fleet department takes care of over 2,000 pieces of rolling stock and probably countless pieces of small equipment.

And most importantly, these are the departments that help return your lives to normalcy after a disaster.

And knowing we're coming to the end of hurricane season, and it's been very favorable for for most everybody.

Um but after a natural disaster, the public works is typically they're the first ones to respond to keep things safe, to clear roadways, to provide access.

And after everybody's gone, they're still there putting everything back to normal.

pieces of small equipment and most importantly these are the departments that help return your lives to normalcy after a disaster and knowing we're coming to the end of hurricane season and it's been very favorable for for most everybody um but after a natural disaster the public works is typically they're the first ones to respond to keep things safe to clear roadways to provide access and after everybody's gone they're still there putting everything back to normal public works professionals are first responders first to arrive last to leave and quite often this gets overlooked I would also like to thank the members of the council for your continued support of this reaccreditation process it demonstrates your commitment to the city staff your commitment to the residents to and to provide the highest levels of service now a little more about accreditation the achievement recognizes the commitment of the city and the public works administration to provide continuous improvements and delivery of services to the community.

As Claude had said it recognizes the policies and the procedures that the department follows and their compliance with international norms he walked through the process a little bit but initially it involves a self-evaluation of what you do as a department even in the reaccreditation process.

And so as probably all these staff members would agree it's not an easy process but it's definitely worth it.

And finally it involves a third party review by the APWA evaluation team and following all of these evaluations said they were re-accredited with 100% compliance on all the subchapters.

And this milestone places the city in a very distinguished group and Claude touched on it a little bit there are over 23,000 municipalities in the United States 223 of them have accredited agencies.

This puts the city in the top 99th percentile of all municipalities in the U.S.

And as he hinted it's of the 40 agencies in the state of Florida you guys are four of them.

And I believe in region four there might be 50 total agencies.

So in region four you're a great piece of the puzzle and on behalf of the National Board of Directors congratulations and a special thank you to Claude his staff and all of their hard work councilmember givens thank you very much I just wanted to thank you so much Claude for being here we don't realize how much we value you know our water resources department our stormwater department those folks who are responding to traffic operation signals that are down potholes that form depressions we we really don't value our public works department until we have a natural disaster like what we had last year.

And I thank you all so much for being the department that is oftentimes overlooked and underappreciated but never never never never in my book you all are a valued resource and I want to thank each and every one of you for your hard work and congratulations to you Claude aK boss man on the reaccreditation.

Thank you so much chair.

Thank you like Sher Hanowitz I just say want to say something quick you all know how much I appreciate you every time you go to the neighborhood meetings now for those of you that have not seen our team at a neighborhood meeting explain how a city works you should definitely see it because it is truly remarkable the amount of information that is held in those brains it is mind boggling not kidding what they do every day and I just want everyone to understand this is an accreditation but every day they're out there solving issues in the city they are like the doctors of the city okay if you think of like the body and your doctor examines your body they are the doctors of the city that are figuring out where all the pipes and all the issues and where the water's going and what's happening here they're doing that.

So sometimes it's not exciting work but they do have the heaviest left so I want to make sure that I acknowledge all the work that you do I I extremely appreciate every one of you and I am always learning day in and day out from you all and I think you're a treasurer to our city so thank you very much.

Councilmember Driscoll oh I want to uh chip in with my round of things Claude thank you for um for bringing everyone here it's it's wonderful to see some of the faces that we don't always have to see or always get to see um here and it gives us an opportunity to thank you personally and and just show you how grateful we are for the things that you do you are seen um and being able to celebrate something like this with you is a great honor.

Um you are you are the ones who make us so proud to um say that we live in St.

Petersburg because you know how to uh design it, build it, fix it, um maintain it, all of that um every day of the week.

And I've learned a lot from all of you since I've been on city council.

It's been um I have really interesting experience.

I never knew that um I would find myself doing so much research on uh I and I or uh looking at at uh look trying to learn more about LIDAR after listening to Bredge talk about it for a while.

And um, you know, earlier we we honored Jim Bays for his work with our lakes.

Well, who does he work with?

He works with uh Michael Harry with uh Marshall and and this um you know people from this division of our city.

There is so much in our everyday lives that these folks impact and work tirelessly to make it better every day.

And I think the whole city is grateful for everything that you do.

So thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Harding.

Thank you, Chair.

Just uh uh obviously an enormous accomplishment and congratulations, right?

No one no one notices the trains and no one notices when the trains run on time, they just notice the one time the train doesn't run on time.

And that's that that is the nature of the industry.

Um, but it is nice to uh to be able to sit here and recognize that uh the trains and the trains running on time is not an easy thing in any way, shape, or form.

And uh and so congratulations to to not only the agencies but the department as a whole.

What a huge accomplishment.

I mean, when you when you sit and and and think about what you've accomplished, he 23,000 municipalities, and and we are five of 223.

That absolutely amazing.

Congratulations uh and enjoy the moment.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lord.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Well, I'm gonna be very quick because I'm sure you're done holding those.

Um but uh council member Harding hit it right on the head.

I mean the staff speak for themselves.

And so just so thankful and uh to the whole team to everybody, just thank you for the continued work, the continued investment in our community and making sure that we're continuing uh to run on time.

So thank you for being here and congratulations again.

Okay, go put those down.

All right, we're gonna move on to D5, and we've got another uh re-accreditation for parks and recreation, and we're joined by our community enrichment administrator Mike Jeffries.

All right, good afternoon, council.

I'm Mike Jeffries, Community Enrichment Administrator.

I've asked my staff to join me uh behind me as we chat about our accreditation, our reaccreditation.

Um as they're starting to join me here at the podium.

There's a couple of things I wanted to say about Claude's um re-accreditation.

And I think most of you know that I travel the country as an auditor and actually um look at other departments in Parks and Rec and offer them re-accreditation or accreditation.

And one of the things that uh we have learned and I have seen uh as I've gone out and I've audited other communities, it's far more difficult to be re-accredited than it is to get your initial accreditation because when you're going through your accreditation, you are talking about the future, and it's here's the policies we have in place, here's the framework, here's how we're looking forward.

Well, when the um re-accreditation comes up every five years, you have to talk about those last five years, and you have to prove to the visitors that it's part of your culture, it's part of your DNA, and that constant improvement and efficiency and effectiveness is there and it's baked into everything you do.

So I will tell you that um I can't give any names because I've signed uh confidentiality, but um I have uh left several cities that have not been offered reaccreditation after after a visit.

So this is not something that's a rubber stamp, it's not a feel good, it's not something that's hey, we're just gonna lob this out and give it to you.

I will also tell you that I have never gone through an accreditation or reaccreditation as a auditor that we've given somebody a hundred percent.

So um we're gonna share with you that we have a hundred percent as well.

So Claude didn't outdo me on that.

But um, I just wanted you to know that this is not something that is um lightly given out or something that's easy to obtain.

So I thought that was important uh framework for you all to know.

All right, so today we are celebrating um our third reaccreditation.

So we were originally accredited in 2010, and some of the same statistics that we heard from public works, I'd like to share some of the same because I think that we shine in the same way, and it really speaks to the city that St.

Petersburg really is.

So the estimate is that there's 25,000 parks and rec departments across the country.

And so that includes military bases, it includes some resorts that are able to qualify as parks and rec agencies.

So they say that there's 25,000.

I looked after our meeting this morning, and there are only 22 accredited agencies in the country, and we are one of them.

We were one of the first to earn back in 2010.

So very, very, very exciting.

When we talk about accreditation, it's offered by the National Rec and Parks Association, and it's uh offered by the Commission for the accreditation of parks and recreation agencies.

And basically, I've shared this with you uh numerous times, but again, it's one thing for me to tell you what a great department we are.

It's another thing for an independent audit team to come in, look at our evidence, look at the information we've presented, and to confirm that we're meeting all the standards.

Uh for our accreditation, there's a hundred and fifty-one standards that you have to meet.

And again, happy to report that we uh polled another 100%, and the team behind me is the reason for that.

Uh, we have some of the most amazing staff.

Uh, the way that we do accreditation, um, rather than having just um some departments have just one person who's in charge of accreditation, we really wanted to make sure that it's baked into everything that we do.

So we assign uh one chapter to every one of our managers.

So our manager uh has that chapter.

And are they rolling their eyes behind me?

They probably are.

Keep looking this way.

There you go.

There you go.

Um, we also make sure that because it's a five-year process, we make sure that we have a backup and we make sure that we have depth on the bench so that we've got, you know, if somebody retires, somebody gets promoted, somebody moves, um, we won't mention Brian Eichler's name.

Um, we're able to just pick up the ball and continue it down the field, and that is really another accreditation standard.

It's sustainability and secession planning.

Um, some of the standards that um I just wanted to read some of the titles just to give you sort of uh an essence of what we're dealing with.

Chapter one is agency mission and purpose.

And again, um they really get into the weeds and really get into the granular uh components.

Chapter two is administration and organizational resources, chapter three, community and park planning.

Chapter four is human resources planning, workforce development, and culture.

That's a really big one.

We heard from our visitors, um, and I think several of you met our visitors uh this year when they came out.

Great, great folks.

Um, that was one of the things that Barb, Rick and I heard over and over again is that the culture of St.

Pete Parks and Rec is one of the best they've ever seen.

And they were really impressed that we um really treat our employees like family and that we were able to connect with them and really uh take information from them, take advice from them, that there was input at all levels, and I think that's something that we really pride ourselves on, and it was nice to hear that from an independent uh group.

Chapter five is financial management, responsibility, and accountability.

Chapter six, uh, programs and services management.

Chapter seven is facilities and land use management.

Chapter eight is law, risk management, safety and security.

Chapter eight is one of those uh chapters that we have to work with several departments throughout the city to make sure that we're in alignment.

So we're working with PD, we're having meetings with the police department, we're meeting with risk management, uh, we're making sure that we're following all of the best practices in those areas as well.

Chapter nine is marketing, communications, and community engagement, and you all know we have one of the best marketing departments, so we continuously work with our marketing uh colleagues, so they really helped us design our marketing plan and put together our communication models.

And then uh chapter chapter 10 is one of the one of the most complicated chapters, and I think this is one that will resonate with the the eight of you uh most.

It's the evaluation assessment and research uh chapter.

So basically, it's everything that we do, we have to do a qualitative or quantitative analysis to make sure that we're really doing what we said we're going to do.

So it's one thing we talked about it this morning.

There are some parks and rec departments that have you know a couple of balls and a and a shopping cart, and they wheel them out into the field and throw the balls out and kids have some fun, and that's all there, that's all there is to it.

Our department is one that's of quality.

We make sure that we have tutors that are working for us, working with us, we're bridging summer gaps, we're making sure that we're continuing the educational component in all the different areas that we that we move forward with.

I thought it was important to share some of the benefits of accreditation, and again, I'm gonna be a little more brief just because this is our third time standing before before council.

But I thought this was important as I was doing some research as to the benefits of accreditation.

So for the community, so anybody here in the audience or anybody who's watching, some of the benefits, um accreditation demonstrates that the agency meets national standards of best practice, um, also recognizes the community as a great place to live.

I think we would all agree that that's uh identifies St.

Pete, help secure external financial support and reduce costs for the community.

I will tell you that ever since we've become an accredited agency, we have been contacted by different organizations that read off of that accreditation list and they say, Hey, we see that you've met all of these standards.

We would like for you to apply for this grant.

Or we've also heard we have cities who are not able to perform, they're underperforming or they're not performing as fast, they can't spend this money before the end of our fiscal year.

Is this something that you all could work with?

And and we've never said no to one of those offers, as you can imagine.

And so it really has put us on a list that allows us to be more nimble and allows us to collect uh more um more revenue from grants and different opportunities of that nature.

Uh other benefits include uh holds the park and recreation agency accountable to the public and ensures responsiveness to meet their needs.

Also ensures that all staff are providing quality customer service for the agency and for staff.

Here are some of the benefits.

Proves to decision makers, elected officials, stakeholders, and the public that your agency is operating with the best practices of the profession, increases credibility and can improve the internal external funding.

We just talked a bit about that.

Improves overall operation and increases efficiency, enhances staff teamwork and pride for engaging all staff in the process.

And again, that's something that accreditation for Parks and Rec is really big on.

Um we have to have conversations with staff at every level when it comes to budget prep.

So when I'm sitting before you uh during your cows, your budget cows, I know what different staff members have asked for and different ideas.

And I have to tell you that frequently we end up using ideas that come in from all different levels.

I can tell you right now, I'm not the smartest person standing up here uh at the mic, but I'm surrounded by many, many smart people.

And again, in the thousand people that work for Parks and Rec, we've got some of the brightest uh city employees here in the in the city.

We also know that um another benefit is that it creates an environment for regular review of operations, policies, procedures, and promotes continual improvement.

And I I smiled because I heard Claude say the same thing about their accreditation process.

It's constantly uh moving the needle, always looking to improve, making sure that you're not resting or becoming complacent.

Um I'll give you an example of one of the one of the committees that exists because of accreditation.

It's our trends committee.

And basically, we have a group of employees that feverishly look through all of our professional uh magazines, all of our websites, and they're looking for new ideas, new sports, new concepts that are coming.

And I will tell you that as a great example, that is the reason why pickleball is here in St.

Pete and we beat out several other communities.

We had more pickleball courts than Tampa, Clearwater, they're catching up to us at this point, but it really allowed us to be on that cutting edge, never want to be on the bleeding edge, but on the cutting edge is where that trends committee keeps us, and I think that's something that we're really proud of.

And that's just a uh a small example of um how we really see accreditation work for us.

I said it this morning and I mean it from the bottom of my heart.

This is not just an award for us.

This is an award for the mayor, for and for council, and for our administrator, because I frequently deal with um communities that have fantastic top-tier parks and rec professionals, but if they're not supported by their elected officials, you've got nothing.

And every single one of you on this dias and Mayor Welch always support Parks and Rec.

And it's it's amazing to me how often you heard uh Chief Holloway say it this morning during our youth and family services committee that he is being asked all over the country, how did you make the second chance program work?

How did you get that done?

And truthfully, it's because of our elected officials, mayor and the eight of you that say, you know what, Mike, Chief Holloway, we're empowering you to make some of the best decisions.

We're allowing you to be nimble, to be informed, to be intentional.

And and the other piece that we don't talk about very often is you allow for us to make mistakes because there are some communities that if you apply any risk and you make any mistake and it doesn't work, you're done.

You know, I I sit in an appointed position, and there is a lot of fear when it comes to thinking outside of the box.

I'm happy to tell you that we have never felt from this elected body or from any of the mayors that we've worked for that um there was fear of thinking outside the box or doing something different, and I think that's why this award belongs to each and every one of you.

So I'd like to give each of you a round of applause as we celebrate uh accreditation.

I am I am truthfully humbled to stand before this team.

Um I I won't get emotional, but I've worked with some of these folks for decades, uh, which is which is scary.

Um there are some that are that are uh teasing with some retirements that are that are potentially coming.

That makes me nervous.

Um, but it's it's one of those things where this is the most amazing team that anybody could ever ask to work with, and I mean that as sincerely as I can possibly say it.

I I have never been behind a closed door where I hear something that makes me uncomfortable or something that doesn't match our corporate culture or doesn't match the We Are St.

Pete.

Never.

And and we have been through some personal um tragedies and some issues that have happened over the years, and the way that other individuals pick up the ball, support what do you need, what can I do?

I'm on my way, I'll do it.

And that happens across the board.

And that I'm well aware that doesn't happen in every department, and I'm well aware that doesn't happen in every city.

Uh so this department is the most amazing uh department that I have ever had the honor of working with.

Um I have asked Barb, our assistant director, and Rick uh to introduce their staff.

I want them to be introduced and kind of let you know which chapters they're doing.

But there's one person who reports directly to me.

I don't know if that's to her chagrin or not, but that's my right hand woman, and that's Yasna Partridge.

So she's she's back there hiding.

Um so let's give her a round of applause.

Yasna and Roxana, I think I think Rocky had to leave.

She had to leave for uh appointment.

She's pregnant for some reason.

But um uh she uh Roxana and Yasna um piece all of our evidence, all of our documentation together.

And if you can imagine one of the challenges to having 10 different people write your evidence back up, is that it's written in 10 different forms and styles.

And so Yasna and Roxana go through, they fact check, they check for typos, they proof, and they make sure that it's consistent so that nobody knows that 10 different people wrote that.

And candidly, um, this year with uh the recovery from the hurricanes, um all of the debris removal and all of the repairs that we had to do.

I really had a very small role in a in the reaccreditation process.

Rick and Barb and the team behind me really picked up the ball because I was at capacity and um you know want to celebrate them, but I did want to mention Yasna and Roxana because they work for me.

Um I will invite Barb up to introduce her staff.

Good afternoon.

Um so I will introduce my staff who are involved in leading chapters, but just wanted to give you an idea of what this is like for the people who are involved in this team.

So each of these individuals are leads for the team, and then they have a team of about four to five staff members from throughout the department who work with them to gather the evidence uh that's required to prove that we're doing what's required for reaccreditation.

And it really takes staff and puts them outside of their usual realm of work.

They're having to research ideas and concepts and really procedures that they have never been interacted with uh within their current role.

So it really helps them grow as individuals and employees as well, which I think is one of a huge benefit uh that we often forget about as we've got our our faces in the reaccreditation um guidelines.

So just wanted to point that out.

Um so I'll call up or recognize some staff.

Um so Jing Lu oversaw the finance, I feel just gonna oversaw the finance chapter.

Uh we had a dual yates, who oversaw security.

Carrie Bittner oversaw evaluation, and Taylor Thornton oversaw planning, parks planning.

So thank you all.

Good afternoon, council, mayor, Rickcraft, recreation programming superintendent.

Um thank you for having us today.

Um, before I introduce my staff, I just want to go a little bit deeper into our process, like Barb talked about.

Um, not only the the men and women behind you are into this, these are our leaders, but we also like to go deep in our bench.

Mike mentioned making it part of our culture, and to do that, we feel like we need to get um our staff involved at all levels.

So they lead a team of five or six people, they do meetings, and as Barb said, these are sections that have maybe some have maybe eight to ten subsections, some like chapter four, which Lucinda Grant ran, um, have I don't know, 20 something subsections.

So it gets really deep.

They put a lot of work into it, and they have to write narratives, they have to collect evidence, and it has to be fresh and new.

So it's a lot of work, but we're really proud that it we dive deep into our our workforce to make sure it's part of our culture every day.

So um the rest of the team is uh section one, which is agency authority was led by Kim Leto.

And um organization was Rebecca Hanson, she's not here today.

Um Lucinda Grant, as I just mentioned, did section four, which is human resources.

Um Chris Wolf stepped up when Lynn Bittner retired and picked up programming for us.

So thank you, Chris.

Um, also Andy Cheat jumped in when Sue T Garden retired for us, and that's why Mike mentioned we have seconds and we we have a deep bench.

Andy led our facility and land use section.

Um, and then Lynn Gordon led our risk management section.

And I also want to recognize um we have a high IT presence on this.

So Mark Stromick is our IT coordinator.

He was heavily involved.

We were we went fully online.

We did uh in the past, we had to do paperwork and did make printed copies, and this time we did it fully integrated online.

So Mark was a big part of that.

Please give him a round of applause.

Thank you, Chair.

Well, first of all, Mike, Barb, Rick, everyone in the team, congratulations.

Um, you always go above and beyond in terms of what you give to the city.

When you say that it's because of what we allow you to do, the reason is because the mayor and city council basically have a mandate from the citizens of St.

Petersburg, and you know that.

And for those that may not know this, the first thing that you will find in our city charter, which is like our constitution, is parks.

Believe it or not, it's not the legislative branch, it's not the executive branch.

It talks about parks.

That's how much our community cares about parks.

The fact that they have the accreditation is a testament to how much they care about parks and they understand that mandate.

So for that, thank you and continued things for everything you knew.

You talked about, I have to mention pickleball.

You talked about pickleball.

You were on the cutting edge, and sometimes the bleeding edge, you know, they deal with stuff every day that can be controversial because there are people that love pickleball, and there are other people that may not like it as much.

And it happens all the time in parks, and they're always finding, and I I think I take this for Mike because he says it that balance, that right balance for all the parks.

All our different parks bring different things to our city for our citizens.

Our waterfront parks, our neighborhood parks, and they all have different flavors, and they try to really kind of keep that mix so we have that quality of life that we really enjoy in our city.

And so I really appreciate the continued work that you do for our parks, and so thank you.

You make our job easy.

Thank you.

Councilmember Givens.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you so much, Mike.

Thank you to your team, Rick, Barb, the rest of the whole staff.

Um, you all are awesome.

You know, it's Vice Chair said it well.

It you know, parks really are the main part, the main part of our quality of life here in St.

Petersburg, you know, and we think about where we spend the majority of our time outside of our homes.

Usually it's in our parks, you know.

And I thank you all so much for the jobs that you do.

Um, I think it's this says the third accreditation, Mike, that we're doing something right, 15 years in a row.

Um, and and I think this is also who we are.

Um, we are a team that knows what we're doing and we're doing it well.

So I thank you so much, Mike, for leading the way, and thank you all for standing.

I know you're behind him, but alongside Mike and all that he's doing because I know that it is a team effort.

So you said it so well, Mike.

Um, you think outside of the box and you do it well.

So I thank you so much.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Well, uh, I know I say it a lot, but I wouldn't be sitting here if it weren't for this department for this administration.

And so um Councilmember Givens mentioned it.

I I don't have a memory from my childhood that doesn't include Northwest or Walter Fuller or Lake Vista, all of the pools, all of the fields, all of the things.

And so um, I'm just I I'm just always in awe.

And Mike, I'm really glad you talked about um the culture of the administration because everyone we encounter 40 years ago to today, um, has always meant like Sue T Garden coaching my brothers in T ball, right?

Like she's a saint just for putting up with GERDIS in T ball.

And so um I just I'm just so thankful, and this is just I'm I'm so happy when we get to celebrate uh the good work that Parks and Rec does in the city of St.

Petersburg, and frankly, the people that are doing the work.

And so thank you all so much.

I know this was a big lift.

Uh my guess is this is probably one of those things where it like starts all over again in one year.

So sorry.

Uh it's Mike's fault.

And um, but just thank you so much and congratulations.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna move on to D6, our St.

Pete TV Awards recognition.

And I think we are joined by Doyle Walsh.

We got him to put a suit on today.

Good afternoon, council.

Um give them a moment to come up.

I do not have a presentation, and I'm not my Jeffrey.

So those are two strikes uh off the bat.

I had Doyle on here.

Uh I'm filming for Elisa.

Uh she does not feel well this afternoon, but I'm incredibly excited uh to be able to celebrate a team whose work reaches every corner of the city externally and internally.

The city's marketing team is a key reason why St.

Pete is so inviting to those who wish they lived here and so embracing of those who stay here.

The team had a leadership change this year, and during that interim, we were grateful to have Michael Flanagan step up in the interim.

We now have Carrie O'Brien leading the charge as the city's marketing director, and thank you, Carrie, for your leadership.

Uh back in May, the creativity of the city marketing team's video and television crew was recognized at the 46th annual Tully Awards.

Uh these annual awards showcase the best in uh video and television content across all platforms, receiving 13,000 entries globally from six continents and 50 states.

Since 2018, St.

Pete TV has collected an impressive 32 Tully Awards for their work telling the stories of our organization and community.

Uh this year our team received seven awards, and I'm gonna go through those briefly.

Uh the first is the St.

Pete Pride welcome message.

Just received the gold telly and the DEI category and a silver telly and the corporate social responsibility category.

The team also received five bronze tellies in the following categories: education and training for the stormwater infrastructure explainer, uh, and uh motivational and advice for the thank you, St.

Pete, which is a post-hurricane video that you may remember from State of the City, uh, the workplace culture category, uh, which was for a video on chief Lindsay Judah from St.

Pete Fire Rescue, uh, a category for government relations for the mayor's future ready academy, the first class, and an internal communications category for the grid intro.

Uh so congratulations to the best video and TV crew in the entire uh country.

Um, but there's more back in August.

One of our newest and most effective internal communications efforts, the grid, which replaced our intranet and also comes uh as an app was recognized with three three CMA awards.

Uh 3CMA stands for the City County Communications and Marketing Association, which is the nation's premier network of government marketing and communication pros in the nation.

It shows how we stack up against our peers in this space.

It was truly a team effort.

The video design, print shop, and project team all brought their best against cities and counties with populations of over 200,000.

The grid earned top recognition in the following three categories promotional video for the grid promo, uh branding and logo for the grid overall, and then a special event, uh, one-time category for the grid lounge that I believe we set up over at Owl Lang uh for an event uh last year.

And so with 72% of uh the city's employees signed up for the grid.

We love that the success it's having uh with employees is finally being recognized on a national level, and so congratulations to the best uh creative team around, and thank you guys for everything you do.

Thank you.

I'd like to turn it over to Carrie just for a few minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you, Doyle.

Thank you, Chair, thank you, Council members.

So I'm Carrie O'Brien, and as Doyle mentioned, I've only been with the city for a couple of months, so I can't claim credit for any of these accomplishments.

But I did want to tell you that one of the reasons I was drawn to this role was because of the exceptional reputation that this marketing team has earned throughout the community.

They are a remarkably skilled and dedicated group, and I'm delighted to see their work receiving well-deserved recognition.

So I just really quickly do some introductions.

So our video production team, they are fantastic.

As Doyle mentioned, they tell just the most wonderful stories, and those are really that's how you stick in people's minds is through the use of storytelling.

And this group shows that impact day in and day out.

So usually they're down in the studio right now.

So this is a rare treat for all of us.

But we have Robert Bruno, we've got um is John Havens here with us today.

So he's downstairs manning the ship.

So hi John.

Um then we've got Kyle Sunstrom, uh, Amanda Henderson, and they're of course led by the amazingly talented Michael Flanagan.

So um, and then of course, moving on to the three three CMA awards.

This was truly a labor of love.

That um, you know, there was a task in front of the team that um we wanted to empower employees in the city to have the information they need to do their jobs.

So the group created the grid, and it's just been a remarkable effort.

72% of employees registered to use the grid.

It's only been in place since March.

It's just a remarkable achievement.

And so the entire team, you know, needs credit for this, but I also want to give a special shout out to Bennett Brzezicki and Ashley Doss for their tireless work in developing engaging content, partnering with departments and driving the staff participation, and of course, our design team led by the incredibly creative Johnny Caranto, including Janet Brown and Greg Plantam Plantamura.

So I'm still stumbling over names a little bit, but you know, it's it's a remarkable team.

We appreciate your support.

We appreciate the support of the mayor's office, and um just delighted to be here today in front of you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Givens, thank you, Chair, and I'll be brief.

I just wanted to thank each and every one of you for all of your hard work and all that you do.

Uh I'd be remiss.

I don't know if the mayor's still in the room, but half of y'all went to Lakewood, and I went to Lakewood with you.

So I just want to thank you all for being upstanding citizens, real true Spartans.

Um, thank you all for the hard work that you that you do.

You know, SPTV is important.

Um, people don't understand the importance of government transparency.

Um, and I think by having our marketing department having a television uh station, we are really making government accessible.

And by doing that, we become more efficient and we can deliver better services to our constituents.

So I thank you all so much for helping us do what we do when we do it well.

So thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Bye, Cher Hanowitz.

Thank you.

Well, congratulations to you all on this achievement.

But I have to say, you guys are veterans of some of these awards.

This is that for those that have not been following this team.

This is not the first time, and this is not their first rodeo.

Um, they've won awards before, and if you see the work that they do day in and day out, you would understand why.

Sometimes when they take videos, whatever it may be that we're working on the city, they've done it with me, and you're thinking, how is this gonna come out?

And then you see it and you're like, oh my gosh, they actually made it look good.

And and they do it so well with everything.

And so there are times where I'm at a meeting thinking, well, how can we make this better?

It's like, oh now I'll think about marketing and and you all and the work you do, maybe we can get a video.

Um, because their storytelling is truly exceptional, and I think it's extremely important because it really connects everyone.

And I telling stories does connect a community, and you do that very well, and it makes us all connected.

And I every time that I see a story of St.

Petersburg, whether it's on you know uh St.

Pete TV or just online on that you know on any channel, I think wow, they made that look fantastic, and I know the people behind it and the work and sweat that went into it.

And so I want to say that every time I see it, it makes me smile because I appreciate all the work that you do.

So thank you so much.

Councilmember Harding.

Thank you, Chair.

The uh super impressive.

The this is a billion dollar company with 3,400 employees that represents seven completely unrelated silos of business.

And um, and the marketing department as uh as I know it so far is about a fifth of the size of what it would be in in any other company with about a tenth of the budget um in a vehicle that is 14 years old to get everyone around.

Right.

Um just put in a plug for them.

Um congratulations.

The the the it is obvious that the that this is staff driven.

That this is not let's put a whole bunch of money into a program.

This is not let's overwhelm it with people.

That this is all earned by a very small number of people that that do extraordinary work.

Um, and and I'm sure pull four and five roles um throughout.

So congratulations on uh on the recognition.

Well deserved.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

I have to stop going after Councilmember Harding.

Um because the only thing I would change from his comments is is not only is it seven silos, but then there are like 17 silos inside of each of the seven silos.

And so uh it's a massive organization that does a massive amount of things.

And what I really wanted to tell you um, uh other than just a congratulations and vice chair talked about, I mean, like you get like we talked about back to back with the kids.

You guys are like back to back to back to back to back.

So um, you guys have really set the pace here.

But I and I enjoy working with each and every one of you.

You uh I'm trying to communicate this well, and of course, I'm talking to the marketing department.

Uh, I could use some help.

Um I think sometimes you forget about um the communication in through your department.

You know, we were I we're very used to I'll just speak for me.

I am very used to going to a neighborhood meeting and being in front of that room and being on here, and I'm not used to doing all the things that we do with you, and you guys make it so enjoyable.

Like I hope I'm communicating that well, because there are a lot of things to be done in these chairs, and the five or ten minutes I get to every other every other week spend with you guys are some of my most enjoyable minutes.

And so thank you.

Thank you, thank congratulations, but thank you.

Awesome job.

Okay, we're gonna move into D7 for a Citizen of the Year award, and we are joined by Administrator Foster.

Good afternoon, council.

So if you were at the May employee recognition ceremony, you already know this fabulous story.

But um, for those of you who weren't, wanted to um bring Mr.

Gillis up.

So, Mr.

Gillis is one of our sanitation drivers, and um earlier this year he was working near 38th Avenue North, which we all know is a very busy street.

He noticed a child alone on the road without any parent parental supervision, and he immediately stopped his truck to ensure that the child was safe until the police arrived.

Um the child was returned home on our unharmed, and um, because of this, he received the Ben Shirley Impactful Service Award here at the City of St.

Pete, but then he was also recognized by our governor.

Um so at the state level, he won the Florida Missing Children's Day Citizen of the Year Award and was able to go up to Tallahassee recently and receive that award.

But it doesn't stop there, right?

So we always hope that when one person takes the time to show compassion and caring that that is contagious and catches on.

And just recently we had another driver, Mr.

Jamar Green.

We'll have him back in front of you at some time in the future, who did the same thing.

So a child was found without any supervision.

He stopped his truck and was able to ensure that that child um remained unharmed and found his way home.

So we are incredibly grateful for everything our drivers do every day.

Um, but even more so whenever they take care of our children, we always talk about it takes a village, and Mr.

Gillis really proved that for us that um without his care, we might have been in a different situation for this child.

So we have Mr.

Gillis here today.

We'd love for him to be able to say a few words and to hear from you as well.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Good afternoon.

Thank you, thank you.

I just want to say I'm very thankful for the war that I was in the right place at the right time by me having 14 grandchildren.

That was like yeah, they asked they active, but that was my first thing.

Like, you know, that could have been one of your kids.

But mostly I would like to thank my management, my directors, my supervisors for making a work-free, stress-free workplace where you can just go out there and do your job safely and stay focused and not have to worry about like all the other negativity that goes on in some jobs, some corporations, stuff like that.

So I'm gonna thank you guys because they go above and beyond for us.

So thank you very much.

Thank you.

All right.

Don't go anywhere yet, Mr.

Gillis.

Don't go anywhere yet, Mr.

Gillis.

That's all right.

This is my first time.

Okay.

Rushing home to the grandchildren.

Yeah, one of them gonna be waiting for Councilmember Givens.

Thank you so much, Chair, and thank you so much, Mr.

Gillis, of being here today and for going above and beyond and out of your way.

Um, I knew Mr.

Ben Shirley, and and to get that award, I know you must feel gratified.

Um, he was a man of integrity and compassion, and I see those same characteristics in you.

Um, so I thank you so much for being that ram in the bush um when we needed you the most.

So thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Harding.

Thank you, Chair.

Mr.

Gillis, you said right time, right place.

Um that happens quite a bit.

That the the third element, the right person part, that doesn't happen often.

The uh the there are plenty of uh of instances where where that could have uh could have and would have turned out uh in a different manner.

Um and I I would argue with you and I appreciate your thoughts, but right time, right places is is common and happens.

You happen to be the right person, and thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Well said.

Thank you.

So, Mr.

Gillis, thank you for being that person that took the time.

You know, there are a lot of times that people are rushing through life, aren't even paying attention to what's going on around them, and you actually took the time and paid attention to something extremely important.

You know, when I was a prosecutor, I did child abuse cases.

Okay.

And I will tell you that you just never know what can happen to a child, and and the fact that you took the time of your day to just not even hesitate, just go ahead and make sure that that child was safe.

You have no idea what you could have prevented.

And so it's very much appreciated.

And if everyone took the time out of their day to make sure that our community was safe, our world would be a better place.

So thank you.

You're welcome.

So, first of all, great shoe game.

Phenomenal job.

Thank you.

Phenomenal job, Mr.

Gillis.

Um, second, uh so uh about eight, seven or eight months ago, I brought my kids to a birthday party at the catapult, which is this big trampoline thing on 66th Street.

And there's a lot what I've realized is there are lots of nooks and crannies in this place, and I lost my son for the period of about 15 minutes.

And it's the most scared I've ever been in my entire life.

The most I can tell you for sure, without a doubt, it's the most scared I've ever been in my entire life.

Now, thankfully, he's too young to realize that he was lost, but I'll bet you if he had, it would have been the most scared he had ever been in his life.

And 15 minutes later, an employee found him tucked away in a hiding spot because that's what six-year-old boys do, right.

But I think about my son, what if that hadn't been in a in a building with a locked door?

And he had gotten, he just I mean, he's a boy, right?

Not to mention he's mine.

Yeah, and so chances are some at some point he's gonna walk out the front door and wander around because that's what Gertus Boys do, okay.

And I am so thankful that we have people in our community and people on our streets like you, because it gives me hope.

Because that's what I think about.

Because it could have been mine.

Could have been any of ours, right?

And I hope this is why I don't like going after him.

I hope that the right person is there to help.

And that was you.

So thank you, thank you, thank you.

From me, from my son, from your 14 grandchildren.

Shit.

It was my person.

Yeah.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Thank you, and well deserved.

Congratulations.

And listen, next time you come into chambers, you gotta let me know because I gotta step up my shoe game to be in the same room as you, man.

All right.

All right, we're gonna move into the last of the awards, D eight, and this is uh resolution of memorial tribute.

And I'm gonna invite Mayor Welch, and he's already there.

Look at him.

Thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

What a great day of recognition of folks that make our city the great place it is.

Uh it's fitting that we close with the resolution uh to a great servant leader in Mayor David Fisher.

Just a few weeks ago, our community was deeply saddened to learn of the passing of Mayor David Fisher.

He was a true lion in our community.

He was dedicated to doing the quiet but strategic and foundational work that it took to move our city from good to great.

He valued transparency, fiscal common sense, and the value of a well-crafted budget book.

As we mourn the loss of Mayor Fisher, we can also honor his legacy by living up to the values he led our city with.

Honesty, integrity, and love for those with whom we share this beautiful city.

Thank you, Mayor Fisher, for your service, and thank you to the Fisher family for sharing him with each of us.

I'd like now like to read the following joint resolution of memorial tribute in honor of Mayor David J.

Fisher.

And it reads, whereas we are profoundly grieved by the passing of a father, grandfather, consummate public servant and friend and the loss to this city of David J.

Fisher, a former St.

Petersburg City Council member, the longest serving mayor, and the city's first strong mayor.

And whereas Mayor Fisher was an influential community leader with a passion for service, neighborhoods, our environment, water quality and conservation, tree planting, and citizen engagement.

And whereas Mayor Fisher served as mayor of this city from 1991 to 2001.

His role as mayor transitioned from ceremonial to strong mayor in 1997.

His leadership ushered in the first season of the Tampa Bay Devil Race, helped settle the infamous water wars, and earn him the title of tree czar, as more than 18,000 trees were planted during his tenure.

And whereas David J.

Fisher left a legacy that will touch the hearts and lives of others for generations to come.

And whereas David J.

Fisher has been called from this season of service on October 22nd, 2025, to an eternal reward of rest.

Now, therefore, I be it resolved by Mayor Kenneth T.

Welch and Chairman Copley Gurtis and the St.

Pete City Council that we for ourselves and for the citizens he served so well with solemn gratitude publicly acknowledge the debt of thanks this city owes to David J.

Fisher for his untiring and steadfast service.

Be it further resolved that we express to the family of David J.

Fisher our heartfelt condolences with the hope that they will take some measure of consolation and the knowledge that he gave himself wholeheartedly to the service of this city.

Be it further resolved, a copy of this resolution is spread upon the menace of the city council and a copy thereof properly embossed is inscribed and transmitted to the family of David J.

Fisher.

And that is submitted by me as Mayor and by our chairman Copley Gurdis.

God bless you, David Fisher.

Thank you.

Well, Mayor, thank you so much for uh bringing this for forward together with City Council.

Um I remember being a kid, and uh David Fisher is the first mayor I can remember talking to my dad about and um some of the uh descriptions you were talking about uh a well-balanced budget book.

Those are the those are the comments I remember uh from Charlie Gurtis back in the 90s.

And so uh I'm just so thankful we're able to uh memorial memorialize um just our our well-wishes to the family and just our thankfulness for his service to this city.

Uh and you know, one of the great things about uh trees, and I know count Councilmember Montaneri is is probably uh thinking the same thing is uh generations, you know, generations will enjoy those 18,000 trees from uh my kids and their kids and their kids, and so uh just very thankful for his service and and mayor again, thank you for bringing this joint resolution forward.

Thank you.

Okay, council members, that's it for awards and presentations.

We're gonna go into new ordinances.

We've got four in a row, and this is just a reminder because we are two hours in, these are four first readings on all four.

Just saying.

So we're gonna E1.

Let's read the ordinance, please.

Proposed ordinance number six twenty-five H an ordinance concerning municipal elections for the city of St.

Petersburg, making findings regarding the qualifying period for the scheduling of those elections, amending city code chapter 10 to provide for a new qualifying period period, right ratifying that the dates of the 2026 municipal primary and general elections are the same as the dates of the 2026 state primary and general elections, providing for a servability and providing for an effective date.

And the public hearing for this item is on December 4th, 2025, and we have no cards.

Second.

We have a motion and a second on E1.

Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting?

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk please tally and announce the vote.

Mr.

Chair, motion to approve a genetic of E1 passes unanimously with Councilmember Driscoll and Fix Sanders being absent.

Okay, thank you.

Let's go on to E2.

Clerk, please read the title.

Proposed ordinance number 626H.

In orders of the City of St.

Petersburg, Florida, amending chapter 22, Article 6.

Division, Article 5, I'm sorry.

All the numbers of the alphabet.

I mean all the numbers, I'm sorry.

In accordance, in ordinance of the city of St.

Petersburg, Florida, amending Chapter 22, Article 4, Division 6 of the St.

Petersburg City Code relating to the 1984 supplemental police officers retirement system.

Amending subsection 22-279D to create staggered elections of full-time police officer trustees.

Amending subsection 22-285 subsection I to allow a member in drop to be elected as a full-time police officer trustee and providing for an effective date, providing an effective date.

Public hearing for this item is also scheduled for December 4th, 2025.

And we do have no car.

We have no cars, Mr.

Chair.

Move approval.

Second.

We have a motion and a second on E2.

Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak.

Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting?

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing as all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally and announce the vote.

Mr.

Chair, motion to approve it unanimous E2 passes unanimously with Councilmember Driscoll being absent.

Okay, thank you.

Let's go to E3.

Clerk, please read the title.

In order to the city of St.

Petersburg, Florida, amending chapter 22, Article 4, Division 4 of the St.

Petersburg City Code relating to the supplemental firefighters retirement system, amending subsection 22-196 of the city code to include Yeah, it's just section.

Section Section 22-196 of the city code to include certain overtime hours on and after, on or after September 22nd, 2025 in the definition of earnable compensation.

Amending subsection 22-200 subsection B to update reference to the Florida statutory definition of full-time firefighter, amending subsection 22-200 subsection D to create staggered elections of full of full-time firefighter trustees.

Amending subsection 22-206.

Subsection L to allow a member in drop to be elected as a full-time firefighter trustee and providing an effective date.

We have a motion and a second on E3.

Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak.

Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting?

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing as all present council members have voted, clerk, please tally and announce the vote.

Mr.

Chair, motion to approve a genetic E3 passes unanimously with Council Member Driscoll being absent.

Okay.

Let's go to E4.

Clerk, please read the title.

An ordinance an ordinance concerning operations of the city's municipal government access channel.

Making findings regarding the operation of that channel channel.

Amending City Code Chapter 2, Article 9, and providing an effective date.

The public hearing for this item is also scheduled for December 4th, 2025.

Move approval.

Second.

We have a motion and a second on E4.

Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak.

Clerk, could you please open the machine for voting?

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing as all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally and announce the vote.

Mr.

Chair, motion to approve agenda E4 passes unanimously with Councilmember Driscoll being absent.

Okay.

All right.

We're going to move into reports, and we've got F1.

We've got Chief Holloway.

Welcome, Chief.

Good afternoon, sir.

Chair, Councilmember.

Third time's a charm.

So it's going to be the quarter report covering from July to September.

So for the overall for the year crime is down by 15%.

Five-year trend crime is down by 18%.

Violent crime is down by 23%.

Five-year trend crime is down 21%.

Property crime crime is down by 13%.

Five-year trend 17%.

And we changed it up a little bit, council, for this for the new quarterly meeting now.

Instead of going year to year, back one year, now we're going to stay within that quarter.

So you can see the whole for the whole year.

So we're only going to do the past year till now.

So for the second quarter, you see we had three for this quarter.

We had two.

Both of those homicide, the uh subjects are under arrest, and they were both related to drugs.

During this period, during the third period, we saw an increased case in the gun response team.

That's usually to do with our summer months around July, August.

We usually see an increase in gun calls.

But as you can see, we've all also had an increase in direct follow.

Stolen guns.

The thing I want to bring to your attention is where it says taken from building.

You see is up to 31.

But a reason for that is because in five residents, we had a large amount of guns taken, and one residence, we had five guns that were uh five guns that were taken, one resident.

We had 11 guns were taken out of that, three, three, and six.

So that's why you see that number so high.

Robberies uh third quarter compared to the second quarter.

You can see that they're down.

Uh burglaries are went up a little bit.

Again, we look at those summer months, and then in the motor vehicles, that tends that trend is still continuing to go downward.

That arrests our arrests are about the same.

Uh we did trend up a little bit in the excuse me.

We trended down in the uh burglaries arrests, but again, we're still out there making arrests when we can close out the cases.

Traffic stats compared to last quarter, uh the traffic cash crashes went up just a little by 20.

Uh and again, uh, thank God we had no hurricane, so we have no wake or or any calls like that that we had to enforce.

Second chance program is still going strong.

We talked about that this morning.

The three that we have as a no sh one we had as a no show, and two were dismissed from the program, so that's why they did not successfully complete the program.

We're gonna be looking at their program to see what we can do differently.

Um we can work either more with the county or more parks and rec or a call program, but we still want to make sure that these kids do not get a criminal record, uh, that we address the issue right away, and we can make sure they're still successful in their lives.

Our home team is still out there monitoring uh the kids that do have criminal records.

Um again, you can see their curfews.

We still go out there and do compliance check once once the court ordered compliance.

Our path unit can still, as you can still make a lot of contact, still doing a lot of referrals again uh with our call program with our path with the path team with um St.

St.

Anthony's Hospital helping us out there, we're still making a lot of contact with our unhoused individuals.

Our park walk and talk, you can see it also is still out there, and we're marking the territories where we've been where we're going.

Eagle Art program, it increased by 13.

We know there are more people out there that have cameras uh on their homes.

We're just trying to get them to register.

I can I don't think you can say though when we do have an incident, people will come out and say, Hey, do you want to look at our ring camera?

Do you look at the cameras we have on our homes?

Our use of force uh went down.

Uh of those 334, none of those were uh out of compliance.

We had one uh citizen complaint uh for this quarter, and that citizen complaint was uh the officer did not follow a policy and procedure, and when we looked at it, the officer was exonerated.

Our call program, we talked about that this morning in the meeting again.

I just want to bring to your attention how we 98% of the calls, we are not using law enforcement to respond as we're using our counselors to go out to help people that are in a crisis, and the biggest thing there's no injuries to our counselors responding to these calls.

Four together we talked about that this morning again.

That's the grant that we received through the mayor and through city council approval.

It is still going strong.

We're still helping these young adults get into programs so we can make sure that we can change their lives.

Our officer friendly program and pop program.

Again, we talked about that this morning.

We're still going very strong with that, and we still want to do interaction with our youth because we want to keep engaging our youth to make sure that we keep them on the right track.

And with that, I'll open it for any questions.

Okay.

Thanks, Chief.

Councilmember Gabbard.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Chief, for the presentation.

Um, and you know, of course, when I see those numbers on those uh stolen firearms, uh, you know me, I get very uh upset about those, but thank you for that clarification that that huge jump was um from just a couple of incidents, but still, um I mean I think that you know, one of the benefits of being able to carry arms in the United States is that it it has to come with responsibility.

And I just really wish that people would understand that these crimes of opportunity don't have to continue happening, and they create other trickle-down issues throughout our city whenever kids a lot of times get their hands on these firearms.

Um, so I just continue to sound that alarm.

I try to share that with the residents that I represent because it happens a lot in my district.

Um, you can see the map and you can see the number of incidents.

I really wanted to also just say publicly, and it's not on this report because it just happened in the last couple of weeks, but in my own neighborhood, um, there was a little uh a rash of this happening.

Um it happened two weekends in a row, and it kind of ran the gamut.

Uh, it was not only the stolen firearms, it was also stolen vehicle and just people leaving their vehicles unlocked.

And when they see that and they're successful one weekend, they come back the next weekend, and then they're successful again.

But I have to say, the work by the arresting officers, and then ultimately the detective.

My residents in my neighborhood and in my district just wanted me to share a big message of thank you because while they were feeling a little bit unsafe for a couple of weeks, now they can rest assured that St.

Pete PD is on it, it's taken care of, and they can move forward and feel safe.

Um, and that, you know, really I think there are no words to express what that means to the community.

So thank you.

Um please send the thanks uh to the detective and to the arresting officers because it just really means the world.

So thank you.

Thank you, man.

I appreciate that.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Givens.

Thank you, Chair, and thank you, Chief, for all your hard work and to our officers as well.

Um, I'd like to start um where council member gabbard left off, and that's um talking about the auto theft issues.

So you mentioned Eagle Eye, and I guess there's an issue trying to get residents to register.

How are we engaging those residents?

How are we encouraging them to participate in that program?

Well, every time we have a community meeting, and I use this form, we try to ask people to go online and register, let us know that they have uh cameras in their home.

And a lot of people, I think the the misinformation is that we can look at your cameras.

We can't look at your cameras.

When something happens, we have to actually physically come to your home, ask you to download the information for so we could we can look at so a lot of people sometimes think big brother is watching you, and it's not.

It's just a tool that we have in our toolbox.

So when something does happen, we know hey, it happened on A Street, and there's 10 cameras on eight street, so we're gonna go to those 10 homes.

So that's what we keep trying to remind people.

We know there's cameras out there, we just want them to register.

So when something does happen, we can go back and backtrack and say, okay, a burglary happened on the street, there's three cameras, maybe they captured the person or captured the car.

So we just continue to do that, sir.

Gotcha.

I remember a few weeks back, we had an influx of accidents involving e-bikes.

And within 48 hours, I think you all were working with the marketing department to start a video that was blasted across our social media pages and on YouTube, and I thought that was very effective.

Um, I thought the message was very clear and concise.

And and if we haven't already, I would love to see um some sort of marketing campaign to really encourage people one to lock their doors, um, even though that's common sense and you should know to do it.

Not everybody has it.

Common sense ain't that common.

Um, but perhaps we can utilize social media again to remind people of what their responsibilities are as not only gun owners but also owners of vehicles.

Um and perhaps we can do two for one, also use that marketing campaign to encourage people to register um for the Eagle Eye program.

Is it's as you said, Chief, it's just misinformation because I was one of those people who was hesitant to do it because I thought the same thing.

Well, are they spying on me?

Um, so I think it's important for us to get ahead of that by educating people and letting them know the benefits of getting involved with that program.

Um, and then lastly, Chief, you mentioned the second chance program.

Um, there were two students, young people that were dismissed.

Can you give me a little information about why they were dismissed?

Sure.

So these these young people they volunteer to come and they're working with a counselor and then they just wouldn't pay attention.

They came late, they were told to do something, they wouldn't do it, so they're asked to leave at that point because the other kids that are there they do want to be involved in it.

So if they don't want to participate in the instruction, they're gonna be asked to leave.

And that makes sense.

And and the difficult part about this, and we've spoken um is the judicial system, right?

What we allow.

Um have we had conversations with any of those judges, Chief, to discuss how we can work together to improve this program?

Remember, this program is outside the judicial system uh the mayor and I we we worked it out is that these kids do not go to court, so what happens again?

The kid can't commit a shoplifting on Monday, and he or she then reports to either parks direct or to a council on Saturday.

So the judges are not involved in this.

We we're trying to avoid the kid going to a judge.

Um what's gonna happen, you're absolutely correct.

So now the charge is gonna come back up, and now the child has to go through the judicial system.

Now they're gonna have an arrest on the record.

Now they're gonna have to go through the juvenile detention center.

So it's kind of like that child has to make that choice and the parents to say, you know what?

I made a mistake.

We all make mistakes.

And this is a way that I can see now will that child still get a diversion?

He or she probably will still get a diversion, but now that record is now going to be held against them.

And you said what I wanted to say.

Um I think we have to be proactive.

And I don't know how we do that.

Again, this is why I would love to bring the powers that be together to say we have to get creative before a child gets a criminal record, before they find themselves in a position that they can't get themselves out of.

How can we, the powers that be, the stakeholders in this community, including those parents who can't be let off the hook?

How can we support them to eliminate and curve and combat and decrease that recidivism rate?

So I would really love if if there is an opportunity for us to engage the judicial system with this program.

I know they're out of the judicial system, but is there an opportunity for us to have those conversations to talk about how we can work together?

And we do have those conversations.

We do talk through the judges, they're very helpful.

Probation parole, uh, chief the chief probation officer.

We talk to her all the time, and we try to work through that.

But again, it has to be the child and the parent.

You and I can talk to them forever, but the child has to say, he or she, I I want to do this.

And the parents have to be the person that bring them along.

Because you and I can't do that.

It's gonna take the child and take the parent to bring that person along.

And also through our call program, you have the like the kids call them the coaches, the coaches talk to the children to try to help them.

So it's really they gotta want to help themselves also.

Well, I thank you so much, G, for doing something to try to find a solution.

Um, it's one thing to do nothing, but at least we are doing something.

So I thank you for that.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Floyd.

Thank you.

I'll uh speak to something Councilmember Givens just briefly mentioned, but just e-bikes in general.

I know we've had this conversation and I've had it at other boards I'm a part of.

Uh, but you know, it seems like every time I look up, I'm struggling with e-bikes, and I just wondered if you could speak to it a little bit, Chief, and how things are going from your end recently.

Sure.

So we after we did all the market advertising, we saw a decrease uh in fatality accident, but we're still seeing accident with e-bikes.

Our plan is to do more marketing because a lot of parents are buying these bikes for these kids, and they're going 25 miles an hour or better.

So we're trying to make sure we can explain that to parents, especially Christmas is right around the corner.

Everybody think they need to buy these bikes.

Uh so it's gonna come out to education.

Uh, that these I guess I'm gonna say they're like semi-motorcycles.

And the kids are gonna modify them, they're gonna make them faster.

So it's gonna take the city, it's gonna take all of us to educate everybody that these bikes travel quite fast.

And if you're in a car, before you know it, this e-bike is right up on you.

And the other part about it is they are not abiding by the law.

And that's how they're getting hurt.

Uh again, we're we are we did see a decrease after we did the marketing, but isn't that to us keep going and doing it and doing it over and over again?

Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that.

And it's one thing, you know, people not knowing the law uh when it comes to like the speeds that they go and the licenses required.

But I mean, uh, I don't know if you could speak to enforcement a little bit, but literally I went and got some lunch today between committee meetings and got cut off by an e-bike, and then they ran through lights, and it's pretty common occurrence now, and so I just wondered uh, you know, what enforcements looked like as well.

Sure, so we are doing traffic enforcement.

I think you looked on our webpage.

I think one weekend we wrote over 200 citations and we had a few phone calls, but we were educating, but at the same time we were writing people, so we're gonna continue to do that.

We have uh grants that allow us to do that, so we're gonna continue to monitor it, we're gonna educate, and then we're also gonna do enforcement because we don't want to see people get hurt, and at the same time, we we just want them to abide by the loss.

Of course, yeah.

So uh your strategy so far has been uh through your regular traffic enforcement and uh just wrapping in like the same thing as you would uh for cars and motorcycles and to extend that to e-bikes as well, then so it's a three-pronged, we don't we're evaluating where they are, then we're going out doing education, and then we're doing enforcement.

So we keep doing those legs.

We put it up on our our Facebook page to let people know that we're coming.

Uh the officers out there stopping.

It just got to continue.

What we're thinking about doing is making sure we possibly send flyers out to the businesses that are selling these e-bikes.

So when a person buys an e-bike, he or she can see what the rules are.

Uh, because a lot of people that think, hey, let's just get an e-bike, and it's nice.

Well, there's big responsibility that goes along with that e-bike.

Okay.

You said a couple of things that piqued my interest.

One is uh the evaluation of where they are, that's interesting.

Um I can't, I'm sure that there are places where it's more likely to be a problem than others, so uh I'm glad to hear that that's happening.

And then reaching out to the businesses as well, uh, making sure that they're providing adequate information.

Um, yeah, I'm gonna think more about that and then would love to chat with you more.

But I appreciate you giving me the update.

Uh, this has been an issue that's um been very frustrating for those of us who care about traffic safety, and uh and people who care about like you know the safety of kids as well, because this is where I keep seeing the biggest headaches from.

Uh my wife's a teacher, and she's had four students get in pretty serious wrecks over the last like six months or so, and so it's been quite frustrating to hear about uh repeatedly, so I appreciate it.

I appreciate you mentioned because a lot of people don't understand, like you're saying that bike is going 25 miles an hour, and then are you on a hill?

I mean, you could put in a bunch of variables that are out there, and a lot of people also the law says anything under 25 miles an hour is an e-bike, and if they modify it, uh and you have a suspended license, you are driving a vehicle, therefore you will be arrested for driving a vehicle.

And people don't realize that well, I gotta suspend a license, I'll go get an e-bike and I'll modify it and I'll modify it so it goes 35 miles an hour.

Well, now you're on a motorcycle.

So we're gonna continue doing that.

Education.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Harding.

Thank you, Chair.

Uh thanks, Chief.

I have uh one simple easy question I've been wondering about.

Do we uh do we look at um businesses or or or pieces of property that overuse the police services?

Um frequent flyers that that don't put in their own security or or cause your department to to be there more often.

Is that something that we that we measure?

We do.

Uh we'll look at that, and if we did get something like that, then either the community service officers, that team would then send something to them, we'll send it through our legal department to let people know.

But we are still going to respond, but what type of calls that are you know, is it false alarms?

We'll go out there and educate the owner of the properties.

Okay.

Is that a and I apologize?

Is that an issue for us at all?

I don't mean the department responding.

I mean having businesses that that require the services too often because they're not putting in good practices.

To my knowledge, no, sir.

I haven't seen anything come across.

We may get maybe one or two a year, but nothing that I can say we get all the time.

Fair enough.

Thank you, Chief.

You're welcome.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Chief, thanks for being with us both uh morning and afternoon.

Appreciate it so much.

I appreciate the update.

I I'll just quickly touch on two things.

Again, I just want to continue to say my thanks for the amount of park walk and talks and and the coverage of those.

It's very appreciative, and I think um officers are being seen, and I hear that, and that's very much appreciated.

Um second, it's kind of goes along with um the e-bike and um and just traffic comments in general.

I don't think any of us would have any problems giving out a significant more amount of tickets with how much speeding is going on and people just not listening.

And so I know that's not to say we're not doing it because you are like I just that's just me saying if you want to if you want to do more, none of us are gonna complain.

And so uh it just it it it boggles my mind, uh, both from the e-bike standpoint.

I mean, we I we have them all over Northwest.

I'm yelling at 12-year-olds constantly who aren't my children, and I yell at mine enough already.

And so uh it just I it just kind of is crazy, and I feel like it's a bit of what it's a bit of a family issue, right?

Like you see your parents drive like a bat out of hell, and chances are you're gonna drive your bike like a bad out of hell.

And so I don't know what we can do about that other than you know, just the enforcement that we're doing.

And so that I just needed to say that out loud, otherwise I would have been upset with myself.

And and if and if your neighborhood data are seeing it, please have them call in because we will send our traffic team there, our CIO, uh see our CSOs.

But I I tell everybody you call, you call, we come, we write.

Yeah.

Nine times out of ten, we catch the people in the residence speeding, also.

Just be careful.

We will come and we will enforce it.

Uh so thank you very much for that.

And if you look at our Facebook page, we'll actually tell people where we're going to be that day, and we still will write you tell them we told you, and you still did it.

Yes, yeah, it's crazy to me.

It's absolutely bonkers.

But no, I appreciate it, Chief.

Uh, Councilmember Fig Sanders.

Thank you.

Chia, you reminded me of something, and thank you that.

On my way here this morning, and I don't know if that's uh city thing or fire department.

I don't know how we can handle it.

But there must have been a really bad fire somewhere, and there were so many trucks and and flashing.

Nobody will pull over.

And and same thing with ambulances, you are taking time away from getting to someone to save their life, and they're trying to maneuver around cars that didn't slow down because some of us stop.

Some so what would an educational opportunity be for the city to kind of help, you know, it it just came to mind when when the chair said that, and I thought that this morning it's like I need to call and find out what we can do as a city.

And I thought that this morning it's like I need to call and find out what we can do as a city.

So I'm just gonna put that out there because it really confused me that people are confused when to stop.

I will get uh she's probably listening right now, so I'll get what Ms.

Fernandez and her team, and we'll do some more marketing.

Like you said, put something on our social media page, maybe do a video and tell people how to need to move over.

When you do, please make sure I get it so I can put it on my social media because I have seen that all over town, but this morning it really hit home because there were several trucks trying to get to some place.

I don't know where it was, but it had to have been mighty, mighty big because there were several trucks and in vehicles going that way.

So thank you for that.

Thank you, Chair.

You remember?

Chief, thanks so much for the update.

Always good seeing you.

Thank you, sir.

Okay, we are gonna move into F two, where we will uh welcome former council member Montanery, who is the chair of the advanced air mobility task force for our progress report number two.

Welcome.

Thank you, Chair Gertis, uh City Council.

It's good to good to see everybody once once again.

Uh this uh as as the chair mentioned, uh this is our second uh progress report, and I'm pleased to uh report to you that the task force is uh doing very well.

Uh I want to thank uh the mayor and city council for putting together a great group of people uh that that care, that listen, learn, and uh are uh working together to solve a uh very interesting issue that uh that uh we're we're facing as as a city.

Last week I had the opportunity to go to Orlando and uh former Senator Jeff Brandis has a uh uh autonomous uh vehicle summit uh there.

And uh I got uh I spent a day and a half there, and I believe we are the only city in the state of Florida that has a task force studying this issue.

Now there's other airports that are studying Tampa International, Orlando, other uh uh airports around the state, but uh I don't know of any uh any city that's doing what the city of St.

Petersburg is doing.

Um so my my uh update is gonna be relatively brief, and this doesn't seem to be working, or it's operator error.

So this you know, I just set myself up for that.

This is the uh task that uh you'll you all gave us uh in the resolution that you passed uh earlier this year.

Thank you, Chan.

And um this is the this is the uh the task force that uh you all and the mayor uh appointed.

Um and as I said before, the task force is working very very well together.

And we're also blessed to have uh a great city staff uh that's that's helping us out uh also.

And it's just a it's just a great group of people.

I also want to uh uh first welcome Beth Beth Herendine to uh a disruptive industry that we're we're studying here at the city, and and uh she came to the last uh task force meeting.

Uh and uh Brett Pettigrew is is doing uh just a wonderful job of uh helping us out with the rest of the legal team.

Rich Lesniak, uh Janie uh as you all know, does a wonderful job uh in assisting us.

And then Doug DeCarlo is our our consultant and uh uh again doing doing a wonderful job uh with us.

When I was here back in August, I talked a little bit about uh how we divided our work into three phases uh because of uh the diversity of the task force.

We have a couple task force members that are kind of experts in the field, and we have some task force members that don't have very much background at all in aviation, and then you have a lot of people in the in the middle.

And so what I what I uh recommended and what we're doing is we kind of went through three we're going through three phases.

We had the education phase where we covered the topics that you have in your screen uh in front of you, and I'm gonna talk about some of the uh recent reports that we've uh received.

And then uh this the task force has moved into the recommendation phase, which is going to be the heart of the report that we're gonna present to you hopefully if we're on time in late January.

Uh and then we'll get into the report phase uh after that.

The uh some of the some of the uh issues that we have uh recently worked on uh back in early August, we had a briefing from our consultant uh Doug DeCarlo, and we talked about uh one of the main things that that the city council put in their resolution, and and that's studying uh advanced air mobility, how would it fit into Albert Wooded Airport, and how would it fit in with the rest of the city when it comes to takeoff and landing uh areas, which are uh called vertiports.

Uh the FAA recognized uh uh one that they call everything like kind of like a heliport, every every uh takeoff and landing area is called a verteport, but the industry looks at uh three different types of of uh vertiports, and they're in front of you there.

Uh the the one with the the the first two on the on the left and center have one uh takeoff and landing area and multiple landing spots, and uh and then the one on the right is called a verta hub, and that has two land uh two takeoff and landing areas and multiple landing spots.

And the way that uh these things, these uh uh verti stops, vertiports, or verti hubs would would operate, it would depend on what sort of uh uh operation you had going on.

If you had an air taxi operation with a lot of operations going on, you might want to have a uh more parking uh areas, and you could you could uh cycle through a lot of these uh aircraft through through these uh uh stops uh through these uh different uh verte ports.

Um the other thing that we we uh were briefed on is uh you know what sort of supports facilities do we need to have, including the uh terminal vehicle parking, uh how much uh electricity that uh we need to have because most of these uh aircraft are uh electrical uh electrically powered.

And then uh some other considerations, including uh uh neighborhood compatibility and and zoning uh in aerospace protection.

When we uh when we studied Albert Wooded Airport, I I know it's kind of a busy slide, but that top slide you can see uh both both runways out there at Albert Wooded Airport, and to the north and the south of the main runway, runway 725, you'll see a yellow line.

And uh that yellow line is a it's a 500 uh foot line away from the center line of uh both runways and uh the FAA if you wanted to put a vertiport uh uh on the airport, you're gonna have to be outside of that yellow yellow line.

So on the north side of the airport, you can see we just don't have uh room to put a vertiport there.

Our consultant uh showed us what a vertiport would look like on the southern part of the airport, and you can see it south of that southern line uh uh south of runway 725.

Um but and you can see the approach and departure corridor, which is depicted on on the uh bottom slide there in front of you.

Um you're gonna have to, if you have a vertiport, you're gonna have to have a a clear air airspace for both the approach phase of the flight, the landing, and then uh when it takes off, it needs to be clear going forward.

Um one of the things that we need to think about when it comes to uh something something like this.

We we could still operate uh EV talls out of Albert Wooded Airport, but not have a vertiport on on the airport.

We could operate like we elephant operate at helicopters now using uh we could we could designate a takeoff and landing area somewhere around the airport, and then they could use the uh clearways uh associated with the runways so that we could operate uh EVTALs uh around the airport.

Uh later in August, we had a uh briefing from uh a financial specialist from ARC Invest to talk us about the uh the different types of aircraft.

And being that this is a brand new industry, there's a lot of uh different types of aircraft, and uh the ones that we have there on the screen are kind of the bigger uh better capitalized companies.

It seems in the industry right now, those uh top two Joby and Archer Aviation are the leaders in the industry at this point in time.

They're very well capitalized, they're they're both based out of California, and they're paired out paired up with both the major airlines, uh Joby with the Delta and uh Virgin Atlantic and uh Archers with the Southwest and United Airlines.

The other thing that's interesting is they both are paired up with automobile manufacturers.

Uh so uh it's just an interesting combination.

Beta is uh uh more of a conventional uh it's not a EV tall, it's more of a conventional uh takeoff and landing uh aircraft, and it's paired up with a company called Blade and UPS.

Um but it was a very uh very interesting uh briefing that that we had.

And uh I we also learned that uh McDill Air Force Base has uh they're getting two of the Joby aircraft and they'll be doing some uh flight testing out there at McDill.

It's both there they're supposed to be delivered sometime this this year.

We also had a briefing from uh Derek Kilborn about uh land use and and zoning.

And uh we are as one of our recommendations that we're gonna or some of our recommendations that we're gonna put in is going to be to uh talk uh to put a recommendation in on a couple things that we found in in his briefing.

We need uh more specific criteria for both heliports in the city of St.

Petersburg, but we don't have anything in our code when it comes to verteports, so we're gonna have to we're gonna put a recommendation in for the city to uh to address both both of those those things.

This is uh a map that was presented to us on this is where heliports are allowed in the in the city of St.

Petersburg, and uh you can you can see that uh they're limited to just certain sit certain parts of the city.

And uh this is uh another thing that we uh we're gonna address in our report uh when it comes to verteports around the city of St.

Petersburg and where they can where they can operate.

Um the other things that we uh briefings that we've uh received.

Uh we had an update on the regulatory framework from uh both uh Brett Pettigrew and Heather Judd.

We we received a legislative update from David Thompson.

Um because of the uh changes going on at the Aberwooded water treatment facility.

We got a little update from Brezhnev Brahman on uh what's going on with the water treatment facility at Albert Wooded Airport uh because of the changes that are going on out there.

And then uh Cheryl Stax briefed us on uh local and regional integration.

And uh we do have uh Witt Blanton on on the task force, and he's just been a uh just been a gift to the task force when it comes to the MPO and some of the transportation issues that uh are going to affect us regionally.

And then uh Aubrey Fit Phillips came came and gave us an update on on funding strategies.

Uh so that is uh that is it for my my presentation.

I'd be uh happy to answer any questions, and just let me just kind of summarize for the public that uh might be watching that doesn't know much about advanced air mobility, but it's uh it's it's kind of like the the cartoon the Jetsons.

You know, you you you get into a vehicle uh they're going to be electrically operated, most of them.

Uh they're going to the FAA when they do certify them are are gonna certify them with a pilot on board, but a lot of these companies want to quickly go to a completely autonomous operation.

And uh so at some point in time when the public feels confident about it, they'll go to an autonomous operation.

Um the the major uses right now that people are thinking about are is an air taxi type operation.

Just think about like an Uber, uh an Uber that flies.

Uh there is a air cargo package delivery system.

go to a completely autonomous operation and uh so at some point in time when the public feels confident about it they'll go to an autonomous operation um and um uh the the major uses right now that people are we're thinking about or is an air taxi type operation just think about like an uber uh an uber that flies uh there is a a air cargo package delivery system and there's uh that's going to be coming uh here to our region very soon there's a cup company called Wing that just uh announced uh within the last month and a half or so uh about uh starting operations in in Tampa I think they're paired up with Walmart to do package delivery via um some of these vehicles uh and then the other the other uh application that uh we're seeing is uh air ambulance and public safety type type application so very exciting study great task force great staff support and uh and things are going well I believe I anticipate us um completing our our work in time uh and presenting the final report to you in late January I'll open up to any any questions that you have thank you very much uh Ed for the report uh we're gonna go to council member Driscoll thank you and thank you for the report welcome back thank you um just to just a few questions you were talking about the um using the existing runway versus establishing a standalone verte port and showing us the space constraints and how we might have to move some things around to make room for um a verti port is a verte stop an option because it's a smaller footprint but I don't know what that is used yeah I you know the the those three different categories kind of speak to like how big of an operation that that you uh like an operator might have so uh going back to the three different companies um you saw them paired up with airlines if an airline wanted to have like multiple operations at the airport that we might want to have like a bigger uh operation uh there the the thing that I think uh we need to keep in mind when it comes to uh a vertiport on Albertwood airport is just the constraints that that we have um the the verte stop is still going to need the approach and departure quarters cleared and if you look at you know the the space that we have out there at Aberwooded airport you're gonna have to do some modifications out there you might not be able to build or develop as many hangars uh and there's always been a waiting list for hangars out there another option which I I mentioned would be just to operate like uh operate uh EV talls out of the airport like we operate helicopters in that way you could just have like a parking area and they could hover taxi to the runways and then take off it sounds like that might be our best option I know we'll get into that more when you do the final report and um and hand it off to us but it sounds like that is that can help this scale faster because more locations can be identified if you can use shared space.

Right okay um the air ambulance you just mentioned it you know um some of our helicopter operations that happen at Albertwood airport now are related to um our local hospitals have you or has anyone spoken with anyone from Johns Hopkins Orlando Health et cetera to see if they are looking into air ambulance no uh we haven't had them in front of the task force yet um but that would be uh that would be a good idea yeah I could see reaching out to them and kind of see what they're what the industry is thinking.

Yeah if they're already thinking about it I want to make sure that they are um tuned in to this discussion and look for a potential partnership okay um with the zoning I don't know if Derek is here but um is close by so if he's not here I just wanted to know if he's working on this because it looks like we've got some work to do um and I like the idea of having flexible zoning because oh hey Derek um regarding um site eight and the zoning and land use planning I like the idea of having flexible zoning so that we can um so that we can accommodate with more ease as this industry evolves and you know that will happen faster than our process really does you know what I mean so I'm I'm just wondering if this is something you're already working on and if you see a a good path to what we can establish here for the city to accommodate yes we can uh absolutely do that um in our initial presentations we were just describing the framework for incorporating this use into the land development regulation

And you know, that will happen faster than our process really does.

You know what I mean?

So I'm I'm just wondering if this is something you're already working on and if you see a good path to what we can establish here for the city to accommodate.

Yes, we can uh absolutely do that.

Um in our initial presentations, we were just describing the framework for incorporating this use into the land development regulations.

Uh we did not put forward specific regulations themselves.

So maximizing flexibility is something that we always try to do through code right, uh code writing, and so we would absolutely do that here.

I see the um so would you start with teleports?

And maybe it's a change of the definition to make sure that it would include um this tech, these types of vehicles, and then kind of grow it from there.

Is that what you that was uh part of our initial presentation was that if there was some uh conservative approach or caution about introducing this, we could start with where heliports are allowed today since they're similar.

And then um after experiencing it through that incorporation, expand it out beyond that.

But um we did offer that that might be a conservative approach to introduce it.

Okay.

When the final report is given, I'd like to know more about that and maybe show um scenario A, scenario B like whatever you've narrowed it down to as far as what we can do or what we might want to consider.

So I'd like to take a deeper dive into that when we get the final report.

Okay.

At this point now, we we've tried to just take a um kind of secondary position, explain how we could incorporate changes into the code, but not necessarily try to influence the the research and the discussion that was happening with the committee, so we'll take their outputs and then figure out how to include it in.

Okay.

Okay.

I know it takes a while, and it looks like there are um there's more than one action or more than one change that needs to happen.

So maybe that's a great thing we can look forward to working on next year.

Yes.

All right, thank you.

That's all I have.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Harding.

Thank you, Chair.

Ed, good to see you, thank you very much.

And I can I just say say something.

I I love it when Derek talks about the conservative approach.

It's kind of like speaking my language.

I will uh I will go the other way to quote the uh the great Mike Jeffries that you want to be on the cutting edge but not the bleeding edge.

Um can you on that note?

Can you give us a sense in in all that you've learned all you've talked to uh all the folks that you've talked to?

How fast is this really coming?

And I don't mean for us and Albert Witt, I mean for society as a whole.

Um is this is this hopefully if everything goes well, we're five years off, or we're gonna see these in months.

Very very good question.

Uh the parts of this are are going very fast.

Uh I think the package delivery part of it is going to be here.

I mean, they're they're already doing some test programs around the country right now with it.

And uh that that company that I I referenced, Wing that uh is paired up with Walmart.

Uh they're they're gonna be operating pretty pretty soon.

And I saw the uh I saw something from the uh Secretary of Transportation uh where he did a little video on social media where a package was delivered to his his house by by one of these vehicles.

So I think that's gonna happen pretty quickly when it comes to carrying passengers, the FAA is at least a year, maybe two years away from certification.

And the uh European version of of the FAA is kind of in the in the same place.

So I think that may take a little little bit more time.

Uh some of the other uh uses, the aero ambulance uses.

I'm not exactly sure how how quickly they're gonna be implemented.

And you uh in addition, you have unique experience with everything you did before sitting in the seat.

Um how do you feel about it?

What are your thoughts on us moving in the in the uh the uh what was the cartoon you referenced?

The Jess's in the Jetsons direction.

Uh I'm I feel I feel very good about it uh when I went to that conference that I that I talked about last week.

Um you can just see where uh this industry is going and is being developed very very quickly.

Uh and there's a a lot of attention uh at the update that I gave you all back in uh August.

feel about it what are your thoughts on us moving in the in the uh the uh what was the cartoon you referenced the jets in the jetson's direction uh i'm I feel I feel very good about it uh when I went to that conference that I that I talked about last week uh you can just see where uh this industry is going and is being developed very very quickly uh and there's a a lot of attention uh at the update that I gave you all back in uh August I talked about how the different levels of government the the the president uh issued a very uh it was like a 15 20 page executive order on on this subject he doesn't want uh his administration doesn't want the United States to fall behind on on this technology and the United States has always been a leader in in uh uh air air uh aerospace and aviation and we don't want to be second uh second in this uh area but the state uh also is is very uh very much a leader in in this space also um the um f dot uh uh uh cabinet member uh uh mr perdu uh jarrett perdue was there and talked quite a bit about uh advanced air mobility and what what they're doing here in the state of Florida and then over in Aubin uh our Auburn Dale they have a uh like a test facility for uh uh automated vehicles and uh they they're they're really pouring a lot of money in to make sure that uh Florida is ready for this also okay look forward to your uh very next report thank you very much I appreciate it thank you thank you council member fixanders thank you hey how are you counseling you can always be council member Matinary so you you're not gonna escape us I just have a small correction because I'm not you sure if you're using this presentation anywhere else um but I'm excited with you what you're doing I just need you to change that C to a K and Jen Nika poke oh just in case I told you man was really small but I you know I have this thing about names we uh I have this thing about names but um it looks like we are really moving along on this because when did you have the first meeting it was April yes that's that was this is moving right along and you plan to be complete when uh the end of January.

Oh wow okay well yeah that's pretty much all I had because you know they have the goat of airlines you know actually chairing the committee so we're not um we're we're we're not uh actually concerned with what you're gonna bring back I'm just looking forward to it so thank you so much thank you very much uh can I just uh mention we do have a member of the task force while Driggers uh here here in the audience uh also and uh I I also uh oh oh hey Max how are you I didn't didn't see you to see you there yeah so we have two members of the task force here here in front of me and uh I just want to make it clear that uh I'm uh I'm chair of the task force I was elected by my uh colleagues on on the task force and I I don't want to like tip the scales in in my report the task force when we uh put our report out that's gonna be the the the report from all of us uh very much appreciated council member um I only have one question thank you for the report thank you for the update uh to all the committee members that are here in attendance thanks for uh pouring in uh on this for us uh and being being those experts in the field um it's it seems on at least one of the pictures on the three different options you gave us on aircraft and then in the last picture on the slide are these are some of these vehicles like they operate like ospreys where yes the blades will turn yes uh so those first two vehicles on the the the top two uh they they operate much much like a uh osprey uh and the uh and that last slide that we have uh operates in a similar fashion but uh the the when I was here in August you asked about conventional takeoff and landing type vehicles this is uh one that's closer to a conventional takeoff and landing vehicle which is this a beta vertical vertical and and that's paired up with American American yeah yeah and I guess my only question and listen I'm not even in the I am worse than an amateur but I do know that there Ospreys had some issues have they have they gotten past that on the on where the blades turn and this they're not worried about that with this not not not yet you know with any uh new technology I mean that's that's why you have a robust uh flight test and up operation type type program okay uh yeah it's uh you know I I I do know that a lot of these uh aircraft are being flown uh quite a bit and being being being tested and like I said those top two uh uh operators both Archer and and Joby they uh they're pretty impressive uh when you when you look at uh their uh capitalization uh and how much work they're putting putting into this and then the fact that Joby is pairing up with the Air Force uh is is very impressive also does the task force plan on making any type of recommendation on what type of aircraft we should have if we have them in the future or we stay

And like I said, those top two uh uh operators, both Archer and and Joby, they uh they're pretty impressive uh when you when you look at uh their uh capitalization uh and how much work they're putting putting into this.

And then the fact that Joby is pairing up with the Air Force uh is very impressive also.

Does the task force plan on making any type of recommendation on what type of aircraft we should have if we have them in the future or are we staying out of that lane?

Uh that's that's for the uh uh I I don't want to avoid your question, but that's for the the task force to to decide.

Okay.

Uh I that's fair.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely fair.

I I was just curious.

I I just had noticed, and then uh obviously ospreys are still in use today.

Uh one landed at Albert Wooded a year ago when the president visited.

In fact, multiple of them did.

And so I it's not like an overarching concern.

I just know that they're with more moving parts become more problems that you see.

So I was just curious.

So yeah.

But very thankful for the update, Councilmember Montanary.

It's always good to see you.

Thanks so much.

Thank thank you very much.

Good to see y'all.

Okay, we're gonna move right into F3.

And this is uh update on the uh Rise Youth Program.

This is uh this was referred by me uh along with kind of the items from this morning and YFS, just uh trying to get our arms around youth programs that are uh city funded and that we are partnering with.

And so I've asked uh Esther to come in and give us an update on this.

And Esther, thank you so much for being patient.

I know it's been a long afternoon, uh, but thanks for being with us and thanks for giving us this update.

No worries, I don't think I've ever spent this long in city chambers, and I guess all of us up here wish we could say that.

And that means that I need to write a letter and say this is absolute madness.

I'm joking.

Um thank you.

Thank you so much for your willingness to um hear about the Rise program Um under the umbrella of Support of Equity Connections.

Before I actually get into the program um and into our PowerPoint, I do want to call up um a parent who has been here since 1.30.

Um another parent was here, she had to go back to work.

Um she left at 2 30, and then uh Mr.

John Bailey, who's grandson is a part of our program, and Deshaun Mims, who is actually the program manager, and then with your permission, I'll get into the PowerPoint at that time.

Okay, so I'll call up Renique, Rennie, Mr.

Bailey first.

All right, fantastic.

John Bailey first, and then Ranique, and then I'll call up Deshaun.

Mr.

Bailey, always good to see you.

Good afternoon.

Good afternoon.

Uh my name is John Bailey, and do I need to get my address?

No, your office.

Yeah, all right.

Okay, it's it's my pleasure to stand here before you and uh speak on behalf of the RISE program, uh Miss Dayshawn Mims.

Uh I had the opportunity to work with her, you know, in terms of uh being a mentor to some of the kids that she's uh uh mentoring.

And uh I could tell you this is that this program is so very much needed.

Uh I am a returning citizen, let me say that.

And since uh since I've been home from uh incarceration, I've had the opportunity to work with many of the uh programs, the youth programs here in St.

Petersburg.

And one of them I have to make mention, you know, is uh hidden voices.

You know, I started out with hidden voices.

I work with uh uh men in the making, uh not my child, not my son, but this program here in particular, uh touched me, you know, in a way because my grandson uh was uh kind of troubled youth.

And uh since I've been home, I've been trying to work with him, you know, in terms of guiding him in the right direction.

Uh Miss Deshaun took my grandson up under her wings and uh invited him into her program.

And since he's been in that program, he's been a changed person.

And so I have uh work with them and I, you know, being that he's been in that program, uh assist them in any kind of way that I can.

And uh just seeing that change.

And these programs, we need many more of them.

And uh I tell you, you know, anything that we could do with this program to expand it uh to help her in any kind of way, you know, to increase the uh the number of people that we could get into it, I think is it's very important.

Because we these kids out there, they're they're kind of lost in a way, and and some of them are fall, you know, have fallen through the cracks, you know, of there are other programs that a lot of them will uh they have the the criteria to answer these programs are high.

But this program, you know, it like we we catch the ones who have fallen through those cracks, and it's very important that we don't we don't waste not one of our children, you know, in terms of helping them to increase them to lift them up and to do just what the rise does.

So I just like to say that much.

You know, I enjoy working with these kids, and I enjoy working with Miss Uh Daysan and Miss Felsey, you know, because these these programs are very well needed.

And I just want to thank y'all, you know, for looking into it, and whatever we do, you know, whatever you can do to help them, then I'm all for it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

And if you look to the far, I guess my left, which will end up being your far right, that would be Mr.

Bailey's grandson.

All right, Renee, you ready?

I know it's so it's so daunting, but I promise you they are nice.

I actually like every single one of them.

Promise.

I'm staying with you.

Hello.

Hello.

I'm Renita.

Very shy.

We don't really do this a lot.

Um, but my daughter is the one to the right, Julia.

Um, we're from New York, so I just wanted to have her engaged in something where she doesn't, you know, tend to want to be on the streets, and you know, somewhere where she finds friends and somebody to support her.

Um, Miss Deshaun became her best friend.

She has more conversation with Deshaun than me, but I guess that's okay because you know, at least she gets opportunities to open up to somebody, you know.

Um this program has like really been a good thing for her.

And I'll just say fund them.

Like I said, um, I get very nervous with the whole speaking, but I really enjoy this program.

I've you know been there a couple of times to see what they do too as well.

They do a lot of fun things, take the kids out.

Like Saturday, they're going to a basketball game, and Mr.

Sean never said, Do you want to come?

But it's good for the children, it's good for the community that the children can actually go out, run together, do things, and just enjoy being kids because that's what I see with my daughter.

I see she's more happy, she's more open, and she just really enjoys this program.

And by her face and smiling, you can tell, you know.

Um, I give it an A plus.

Thank you.

You did good.

All right, Dayshawn.

Okay, hi everybody.

Um, I am not Ishon.

These are not my kids, but they are my kids.

Um, I really enjoyed working in this program.

Um, one of the parents, and I'm trying to say her son is right here in the front with like his shirt kind of off, but um, I think when they first started the program, or one of the things that she said the most was her son didn't really get any positive um mentorship from home.

Um, she was a single parent, and she really didn't have any level of like male mentorship for him that was positive.

He had cousins, he had family members, but they weren't really positive figures in his wife.

So when she brought him into the program, that was one of the things that she really enjoyed was him being able to meet other men.

Um we've connected him with other programs like Pathfinders, um, other mentorship programs, other opportunities for him to see more.

Um, so outside of it just being Rise, really try to connect him with his entire community to make sure that he felt supported.

Thank you.

All right, thank you guys for your patience.

I think it's important, and anytime I come up here, I say the lived experience, the live voice is what tells the story.

And so we can talk um PowerPoint, we can talk data, but when you hear and see that kids are um really being affected and that they're being changed, and there's an intentional movement in their life, it's important.

So the Rise Youth Program, empowering youth, building leaders, changing communities.

I put this picture here because this um trip, and it's one of my favorites actually.

Um we had an opportunity with Fire Chief Watts.

They opened up the only fire station in the city that still has the pole.

And these kids wanted to go down the pole.

And it was amazing because when we got back to at the time we were at um Perks Um office 1601.

If you've been there, there's like two polls on the inside, and to see the kids climb up on the poll and say, okay, this is the poll at the fire station.

We want to go down.

And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

This is insurance issue.

Please don't go down the poll.

But it's the excitement to hear that they begin to talk about what their career is like when we first launched Rise back in January.

There was no talk about a career.

We were we were navigating, and some of our kids are foster care youth.

Some of them we have a contract with Department of Juvenile Justice.

So we are getting kids from Judge Patrice Moore and Judge Pierce.

And so these kids are coming to us, and they don't even necessarily understand what a path for it is.

And so having these conversations has been very intentional for us.

And so the program overview the Rise Youth Program is a year-round youth development initiative, and it's truly designed for ages 10 to 17.

And we put 18 here because if they are in fact enrolled in the foster care system, they can still come to us.

Civic success for me is probably the most important piece here because when you believe in the city that you grow and are raised in and go to school in and do all of the stuff, our hope is that soon as they begin to grow in their space, they will be on this diet.

They will really be intentional with their voice, and we're pushing for that.

We'll get to that a little later.

But you'll hear me talk about that a little more.

Put this up here, we are intentional.

That is a horrible picture of me.

We are intentional, not just hearing from the parents, but also hearing from the kids.

And so this is a letter that one of our foster care youth wrote.

You can look at it and read it at your leisure.

But he is talking about how he did not care about how he showed up.

He did not care about how he was looked at within his home, within the many foster care homes that he's gone through.

And we were able to place him in his first job this summer and not just place him in a job, but also helping him to understand that at six foot five, ninth, tenth grader.

He was 14.

14, 9th grader, that it does not matter what you do, you are going to be seen.

And so how you show up is going to be very important.

And so as we begin to have those conversations, it was exciting to hear him, but also read the fact that although he was passed around from foster care to foster care home, Rise, but also the home that he's currently in has made a difference in his life.

And so our program highlights are very clear.

Our attendance, we are proud to say that we um have our kids there every Saturday.

Um for youth, but we have a 95% attendance rate, and that is important to us.

That means that at any given time we have anywhere from 15 to 25 kids.

And as Ranique just said, we we're taking them to the basketball game.

Um kudos to Besco for giving us those tickets.

Um, but we show up for them and we get them out in the community, we're taking them bowling, we're taking them um to the places.

I think our first one we took them out to dinner, Mr.

Bailey, and these kids had never gone out to dinner.

And so we're having the conversations, not only what it means to go out to dinner, but what it means to really be um respectful as you're sitting at the table eating, and what it means to not only thank the server, but also to ensure that you greet them properly.

Things that we as adults forget about and things that our youth don't know about if they're not taught.

Our retention is 85%.

I wanted to mention that we have the six youth that were hired during the summer, and of course, our engagement reflects 250 case um management touch points, and to date 40 community events.

Our intendants, um, again, when we talk about youth growth and um impact, we want to ensure as we're capturing the data and proud to say that we now have an MOU in place with um Pinellas County Schools, where we will be able to not only be intentional with what our kids are doing within the school systems as well as in the program as well as at home.

So in our new um new iteration of what RISE will look like, we um are privileged and proud to say that Pinellas County Schools has given us um permission to come in and hold a space within the schools, and so our mentors will be in the schools, really connecting with them during the school day.

Engagement again, increased family engagement, very important.

Um, employment.

We're looking at um really contacting those employers that are um able to hire our youth, but really targeting the employment so that they will give our youth first dibs at the opportunities, and then in this upcoming um iteration, we're looking at being very intentional with civic projects, and I'll talk a little bit about that a little later.

So we talk about financial stewardship because I do know that um the money given is important.

I want to say thank you to Chief Um Holloway.

When he when we when I went to him with division, he believed in it, and he provided a pilot um stewardship, um, stewardship, financial um gift, and then um came to the city of St.

Petersburg.

Thank you.

Um St.

Petersburg also provided um in that pilot program um a little less than 75,000.

Um some people would say um you've only served 45 youth, and I say we've served 45 at-risk youth, youth who are forgotten about, youth who um they're not the easy hanging fruit, but they're the most important fruit.

We're serving the youth that if for no other reason, if they pass you by, you may say, Oh, they're out there causing trouble, they're breaking in cards, they're doing all of the things that Chief may have just talked to us about.

But these are the youth that we want.

We say bring them.

When Judge Patrice Moore calls us, we say bring them, we are coming.

What do we need to do?

When Judge Pierce says, Hey, I got this kid, I can't mandate it but touch the family.

We ensure that we do that because those are the ones that we want, and this is especially dear to my heart because I say this and I am not afraid to say it.

If not for a gentleman by the name of Minister Askia Akeel, some of you may know him, um, I myself would be at risk, and I would not be where I am.

It is because he gave back to me, it's because he took me under his wing at um Pinellas County Island Authority that I'm able to stand here.

So, expanding our impact.

We know that we received um appropriation requests from Department of Juvenile Justice, 75,000.

We are happy and proud to say that we were one of four organizations chosen by the Foundation for a Healthy St.

Petersburg for a 250,000 dollar grant.

I got their permission, so they said that I could not only say that, but I can also say that, and this was shared with us in a meeting that we had, um both um the Orlando Orlando Health Board of Directors and the Foundation Board of Directors voted unanimously to fund us.

Um, so this says to us that we are on the mark and we're doing the work, and I'm excited to say that.

And so, what does that look like for us in 2026?

We are going to increase the youth that we serve.

We are going to hire and recruit case managers.

We've partnered with Stetson's Truth and Racial Healing and Stetson's Just Social Justice Um Advocacy Department, and they will be leaning in and giving us mentors that will do healing circles that will work mentoring with our youth within the schools.

Um, we will be very intentional with the parent empowerment circle.

We're gonna lean on our parents that are in the program to lead those parent empowerment circles.

I mentioned about workforce development, we're expanding our community partnerships, and those expansions are again Pinellas County School Board and what we're doing with um Stets and Truth and Racial Healing and SJA.

And our sustainability, we will continue to work towards true sustainability.

Our key and our focus is ensuring that not only are we building strong partnerships because we know that it's essential, but that we're collaborating with the local schools, collaborating with other organizations.

You heard Deshaun say that we are not siloed, we ensure that we do um true intentional um referrals, we have referrals that go out to the St.

Petersburg Hub.

Many of our kids express by way of their parents that they need levels of therapy.

And so we ensure that they show up to the St.

Pete hubs and not only just show up, but we have direct referrals to them.

And then we also ensure that they have the ability to provide the intentional support for our youth.

So they're not dropping into a hole, they're getting intentional support.

I think it's important in this space to mention that, and Mr.

Bailey said it, but I want to hamper down on it.

Um, hidden voices was a key piece to how we formed and firmed up what Rise will do.

We noticed with Hidden Voices, um, we had um parents that were coming back to the community, um, parents that were dealing with um some level of gun violence in the community, and the kids were being lost.

The kids were in the families, but to some extent they were being lost in the whole thing because as we know, when these things happen, it's a heavy focus on what's going on with the adults, but the kids' voice is lost.

And so it was because of hidden voices that this idea came to fruition, but not just fruition, it was firmed up because many of the referrals that we got as we started out came through the Hidden Voices pipeline.

And so I want to just really um really ensure that it's very clear that these things they work hand in hand, and oftentimes people will say it's too much.

But I tell you, when you look at the data that Chief said and showed us, it's never too much.

Our kids are the most important piece of the puzzle of our city, and I put this here because I always come with a request.

I know y'all sick of me, I always do.

It is what it is.

Um, I was a little sad.

I was a little sad that we um got word that we were not awarded um a um RFP that we submitted for, but I think that um even in the lack of the awarding of it, the work that we're doing, the intention that we're doing it with, um, I am not, I am not um, I am not hampered to know and believe that um we will still move forward.

Um, it is it is with um true intention, um, true collaboration, true footprints that we will um ensure that these kids are successful and every other kid that comes through this program.

I want to talk a little bit about what the next reiteration looks like, and it's important for me to talk about this.

So the grant that we receive through the Foundation for a Healthy St.

Pete is about leadership, it's tied to leadership.

Um, we are looking and leaning on the city of St.

Petersburg to create um with along with our youth a committee that is youth-driven, youth-led, youth voices.

Um, and those youth need to be in place because we can say what the youth need all day, every day, but the youth know what they need, and until we pause long enough to hear what they have to say, then we're doing them a disservice.

In addition to that, we're looking at Pinellas County School Boards that will also um lean in and create an ad hoc committee that go along with the school board, and that committee also will be youth-led and youth-driven for the youth voice.

What does that mean?

That means that we are going to build true civic leaders, and in building civic leaders, we know that we will have successful individuals that will come out of our schools.

That's all I got.

Let's connect, let's make a difference.

Sorry for getting emotional, but I'm still at risk to some extent.

Don't apologize.

Thank you.

You know, I wasn't gonna let you stand there and and not say anything to um congratulate you, and especially my fave, Mr.

Shine.

Yes.

Um, you know, we've given a hidden voices presentation more than once.

Um I will digress from my comments on hidden voices right now.

Um, but I will tell you thank you for acknowledging the fact that a lot of every group is serving um a certain culture of children, right?

Um, but with what you have been doing, there isn't a market.

If you tell someone you have a felony, or you're dealing with mental illness, or you know, you're you're the victim of a crime, or someone in your family, your spouse, they treat you differently.

Absolutely.

You don't get this same Mr.

Good Morning, Mrs.

How are you missing?

They take away, they make our returning citizens feel just like that.

That they are returning citizens to a community that accepts them, willing to work with them, willing to put them in a place where they can regain their dignity past the bars, right?

So when you acknowledge the fact that the children spawned, rise, spawned from hidden voices, that touched me deeply.

Because you're right, those children are the ones that often, well, children get, you know, their voices aren't heard um as much as we would like for our voices to be heard.

But then the children of, well, my family might be dysfunctional, you know, it all depends on your definition.

But these are truly dysfunctional children that come from truly dysfunctional families.

And it saddens me when you get a role, you're making a difference, and then what?

Yeah.

How do you continue to provide that service?

How do you continue to show that growth?

How do you continue to know that those clients, that the families, the children that you were serving, would no longer have your support.

So while you have them, continue to embrace them.

Deshaun, stand up.

Continue to embrace them.

Now, Deshaun, you knew I was gonna embarrass you because when I tell you that she is the hardest, I know that's your daughter, but she is the hardest working young people when it comes to that segment of our community.

No fears, no judgment, and I gotta thank you for that.

Because everyone isn't able to go into those places that a lot of us, and I'm gonna say us, won't go.

And those are the cracks in some places, gaps, you know, wide that we we've lost focus on.

Um, so again, thank you for your additional funding.

Thank you for seeing the need that is definitely valuable in the community.

Um, I always tell people you have a plan B C D N E when it comes down to our children, when it comes down to those deserving families, and and and don't stop what you're doing.

Deshaun, thank you, right?

You know, we even talk to young ladies who also get lost a little bit.

And you know, we think it's a young men thing.

No, my experiences with those young girls is something completely different.

So with this program, thank you, Chair, for bringing this um to fruition, thank you, Esther, for continuing to realize that it's not a one-size fits all.

It never has been.

And once we get past whose program it is, but who we're serving, that's going to be the true turning point to changing people's lives.

So, whatever you call it, rise up, rise down, whatever, continue to do the work.

Um, you know, because that's what's important.

It really is what's important.

So I'm glad so many people found value in what it is that you're doing.

And, you know, I don't have any money, but I do have time, and Deshaun makes it very, very, very welcoming for me to attend the activity.

So again, I just publicly have to thank you, and I'm gonna thank you a bit.

Where's Mr.

Bailey?

Did he leave?

Mr.

Bailey, I want to thank you for your transparency.

I want to thank you for your mentorship.

I want to thank you for just knowing that there is a right way, right?

You can always you turn and do things right, and then you're taking your grandson with you.

So this is my opportunity to say thank you to you, Mr.

Bailey.

Again, thank you, Deshaun, and thank you, Esther.

I really do appreciate it.

Thank you for that.

Absolutely.

I'll say this.

Um Deshaun is a jewel.

Yes, she is.

You know, Deshaun is my baby.

I got pregnant at 17.

And I had her.

And everybody, the church, everybody said, you're not gonna be nothing.

Your baby not gonna be nothing.

That's what they do.

Because that's what they do to us.

But I'm proud to say that not only is she a college graduate, but she's giving back, and she encouraged me to go back to school and get my masters.

It's important for us not to throw people away.

Right, right.

And our kids statistically, her story should be different because her mom was a 17-year-old team parent.

And so I carry her with me.

Y'all know I don't play about my baby.

I will bust somebody in the head about Deshaun Mims because she stands in her own right as a strong community lead.

Yes, you do.

Thank you.

Well, Esther, um, thank you so much for coming in and being patient with us.

I know it's been a long time and all of everyone.

Thank you.

Uh for sharing your stories and your experiences, and thank you for sharing this update and the incredible work that is happening in our community.

And uh thanks for being here.

Thank you, Cole.

Thanks, Esther.

Yeah, I have a good one.

You too.

Thank you.

Okay, we're gonna move into F4 where we're gonna have a Mahaffey Theater Annual Report and Agreement Extension update.

And this was referred by Councilmember Gabbert, so Councilmember Gabbard will throw it over to you first if you'd like.

Sure, very quickly.

Um just uh taking up the stage a little bit.

So I went ahead and I filed this uh report item for a couple of reasons.

One um because per the agreement it is time for the uh annual update.

And we did just have um a Mahaffey update, if you will, I think in August, um, but that did not have all of the financial projections and everything that is due to City Council, and so um went ahead and filed the item for that reason, but also because um we do have an agreement that is coming up on an end uh next year, and there has been some ongoing negotiation as you can see in your backup, and we have yet to come to any sort of agreement.

And I thought that it was time for city council to get a in the sunshine update on this, have a uh collective conversation and see how this body uh believes that the administration should move forward.

So with that, I will go ahead and turn it over to Beth for um her very uh comprehensive update.

And Beth, first of all, before you start, I just want to thank you.

Um we've been talking a lot about this over the last few weeks, and so thank you for indulging my request for this uh report today and for all of your hard work.

Absolutely.

Thank you for for putting it on the agenda.

You appreciate it.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, Beth Harandine, Managing Director Um City Development Administration.

Um before I start the presentation, I do want to acknowledge that uh Mr.

Edwards, uh uh CEO of Big Three and Jim Beaman, the general manager of the Mahaffey Theater, are with us here today.

I think that's okay.

Gotcha.

Oh, I don't oh, sorry.

And we also have Live Nation joining us today, so thank you so much.

All right.

Let's see if I hit it properly.

All right, before um I get into the report, just for those who uh may not be as familiar with the Mahaffey.

I'll do a very quick history.

Uh the building opened uh in May 1965 as the Bayfront Center Auditorium, and you'll see on that top right photo, it did not look nearly as pretty as it does now.

Um in 1987, uh the city did a 20 plus million dollar renovation, including uh the Mahaffey family's one million dollar gift, and that turned it into the beautiful European theater that we know today.

Um at that time it was uh managed by city staff uh with support from the Mahaffey Theater Foundation.

Uh then in December 2004, we demolished the adjacent Bayfront Center arena, uh which gave us the opportunity to renovate the Mahaffey in 2005, create the atrium uh and the new lobby space that you see uh while closed.

We did go out to RFP to go to private management.

SMG was selected through a formal process, and then in 2010 we went to RFP again, and Big Three took over uh management of the theater in September 2011, and they have been doing uh a wonderful job of bringing great entertainment to the city um since that time.

So, as Councilmember Gabbard mentioned, um, as part of the uh current agreement, they do need to provide an annual uh report to us uh by November uh 1st of each fiscal year.

So we did receive that, and there are certain points that that annual report has to hit.

So you will see those on the screen above for the prior fiscal year.

The revenue at the theater was uh seven million one hundred and fifty-seven thousand.

The and I'm rounding down or rounding expenses were seven million three hundred and forty-seven thousand, including uh five hundred and fifty thousand dollars paid by the uh Bill Edwards Foundation for the Arts, which is the foundation on site that does support uh the programming um not just class acts, but uh additional programming at the theater.

Um, the number of events hosted last fiscal year, 263 over 244 use days.

The annual attendance uh was just shy of 200,000 uh people at 198,747.

And then Big Three has an opportunity to earn incentive fees for top acts, and those are defined as meeting a certain pole star is the industry trade magazine.

So if they uh have a certain ranking in touring for Polestar, or if they are a sellout.

So they earned 195,000 last fiscal year for that top act incentive fee.

And then I I did uh put in uh some of the the numbers um for prior fiscal years.

So you'll see obviously we we took a little downturn or a big downturn with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, but big three has worked uh hard since then to build those numbers back up, and you'll see that uh the previous uh uh years uh are fairly similar, relatively similar to what we experienced this past year.

Uh so that is the annual report, and then that brings me to the second part of the request, which was to talk about the agreement extension.

So by contract, big three uh needed to tell us by this past September 30th whether they wanted to extend or not.

They did notify me early uh in May that they wished to extend the management agreement, um, but with uh some changes to the uh existing terms.

So both uh James Corbett and I together and individually met with Mr.

Edwards and Mr.

Beaman uh several times um throughout the summer and early fall to discuss terms, and we did provide um kind of our first official proposal on October 6th.

Um in that proposal um we did increase uh the management fee using a uh uh kind of a 3% annual cost of living uh escalator.

We increased the um uh incentive fee, the cap on the incentive fee, so we we increased that.

We increased the um CIP contribution that we uh had been giving 400,000, um so we did uh increase that, and then um we also let me see.

Um I think that those were the main main pieces.

Much of the rest of the agreement remained unchanged.

And in that, I will say that those increases the current year, which ends the current agreement which ends September 30th, 2026.

We did not uh we were keeping the conditions or the terms the same for that final year of the current agreement, and then those new terms would come uh to play in the additional two years.

So that brought us to roughly a 13.2% increase over the current um uh over the current agreement.

Um and then we did receive a counter proposal from Big Three on October 21st.

Um, and uh that actually more than uh doubled what we're what we're paying now.

And and how it is now, there's sort of a minimum city contribution, there's a monthly management fee, there is um the incentive fee with the cap, there is a um a uh uh CIP contribution, and then in the current agreement, big three takes on the first two hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars of repair and maintenance, and then we pay over that.

So how I came with these numbers is I I I just capped the repair and maintenance expenses at 275 to really just calculate what our minimum contractual obligation or contribution would be.

So that's where I I got the um hundred uh a little over a hundred percent.

So um so we I we went back with what I'm calling uh a best and final offer, and really I know that's not necessarily a term that the city uses uh specifically, but time is of the essence.

We do need to to move forward and know what we're doing.

I mean, we we we uh I think we're trying our best efforts to have big three extend, and I have some uh circumstances that I'll talk about in another slide, but we just uh you know weren't able to to to reach an agreement or accept their proposal.

So we did go back with another proposal which uh started the uh increases in this current fiscal year, so that was um uh increased the uh uh delta between the current agreement and the and the uh proposed agreement as a 26.3% increase in the city's uh contribution.

Um that wasn't necessarily uh agreed to, but there was uh uh an indication that the the big three wanted to continue to continue to negotiate and continue to um to manage the theater, so uh administration did um uh offer an additional, and I I missed a step, an additional fifty thousand dollars reduction in um in big three's um uh CIP contribution, and I cannot read that.

And I cannot read that.

But in essence, you'll see so the existing agreement is in the gray column.

The first proposal that we had is in the two white columns, and again, it's two columns because the first year was not there would be no change, and the changes would happen in the two additional years.

The blue column is Big Three's counter proposal.

The yellow column is kind of our first go uh go back, and then the green column is where we ended up.

So where we are now is a about a $900,000 minimum city contribution.

We have been spending more than that over the last few years on repair and maintenance above the 275.

Um and then where we landed was the uh minimum contribution of the 1,187, I believe that says.

Um and again, that would be uh um the minimum.

So um so that's that that's where we landed.

Uh and again, none of this we do believe that big three is um is doing a good job, and we did take some other additional considerations into account um in going through this.

So um prior to me taking uh the Mahaffey on as um one of my facilities, uh Chris Balestra and Raul Quintana from Engineering and Capital Improvements engaged colliers to do a full facility assessment, and those findings were received in May.

They did um outline some uh more immediate necessary repairs that totaled about seven million dollars.

Um I will tell you that uh my notes, some of those areas have been uh have been uh uh taken care of or in the process of taking care of.

Um council just recently in approving the budget approved one point million 1.9 million dollars for the roof replacement at Mahaffey.

So that is um uh starting now.

We've had our pre-construction meetings to begin.

We did repair the orchestra pit lift system.

Um that's complete.

That was a Helene uh damage.

Um we've uh been replacing or are planning on replacing uh some of the outdated mechanical and electrical equipment.

The pit equipment was uh replaced.

We're working with um uh Jim Beaman and his staff.

Um we've got uh Dyken coming out to do um uh chiller work, and we replaced the air conditioning controls and such.

Um and the the assessment did note uh the need for some replacement of theatrical sound and lighting equipment, flood mitigation, and other items.

So that was all taken into account.

And as you'll see the next bullet, we are working on that.

So we all are also working with administration.

We do recognize um the need for um a more um complex or comprehensive renovation to the Mahaffey, as I said on my first slide.

Um, you know, it was 1965, then 1987, then 2005.

So we're kind of in that cycle of when the facility needs a refresh.

So we're looking at doing that with um a combination of CRA funding, county and state funding, and I have 2820 late 28 following the 28 season um and 29 is kind of a penciled-in placeholder.

That's not set in stone.

That would be the earliest, I believe, based on a getting designs and B getting funding to do that.

Um so with all of that in mind, um, what we consider the next steps to be um would be to go to an RFP, um, considering that we could not reach an agreement with Big Three on what an extension would be.

So um we've talked with uh procurement and we actually met with legal today, and this is um the proposed RFP RFP timeline that we would issue uh the RFP in mid-uh December, have responses due in mid-February, um, shortlist in April, uh recommend for award in June, uh negotiate hopefully by the end of July and have it to council in August, early that August 13th meeting would be great for approval, which would give us um uh about a month and a half or so to transition or to um continue with Big Three, but to have an approved um an approved uh contract in place.

So that was kind of a quick run through, but I in respect for your time.

That is where we are now.

So I'm happy to answer questions, and I'm sure um big three would also be happy to answer questions if you have them.

Okay, let's go to public comment, please.

Comments Nestor, please approach our podium, state your name and address.

You have three minutes to address city council.

Hello.

Um my name is Thomas uh John Nestor.

I live at 545th Avenue Northeast.

Um grateful resident of the Sunshine City since 1990 when I moved from Chicago and never want to shovel snow again.

Um been producing and promoting concerts in Tampa Bay, primarily St.

Petersburg for 30 years.

First event I did was on the rooftop of the Snell Arcade in 1991.

Had a tenure ship with uh three ownerships of Janice Lanning and Janice Live.

Uh Donovan's uh Vinoy Park and currently uh assisting uh Mark Ferguson at Ferg Sports Bar and Grill and Concert Pavilion with his uh concerts and event.

Uh the Mahaffey Theater is a gem of a theater.

Um and Bill Edwards and his team at Big Three have uh really transformed the city theater into world-class facility.

Um I'm actually envious as a promoter when I see shows like Sting and acts that I can't get won't get, uh, as well as that there's a competition that takes place in Tampa Bay right now, whether we like it or not.

Clearwater has a bunch of venues.

Tampa has a bunch of venues and alliances that are occurring, and they want to get all the shows.

So you have a uh uh a great uh advocate is battling for the shows to bring him to the Sunshine City, especially with his alliance with Live Nation, again, which I'm envious of.

Um I also know from a personal conversation with Bill, he's expressly told me that he loves the theater.

And um I I uh I agree with him, I love it too.

And I'm I'm grateful for all of his investment and effort in the city.

He could be doing all kinds of things with his life.

He loves the the theater greatly.

Uh in my uh review of of what's happening in right now what's up before the council, I personally want to say that to me, this is more than if it's not broke, don't fix it.

It's let's stick with what is working great and at a high level of excellence.

Uh let's back Bill Edwards and uh the Big Three Group and their management of the Mahaffey uh in the events they enthusiastically produce here uh throughout the year uh for all ages.

Um it's not just high-end acts for people that can afford uh you know meet and greets with with with the singer and founder of the police uh sting, it's um all the programs for for kids and things that he does again, which I'm envious of and uh look up to and uh hope to strive to be uh you know on that level someday in the city that I love.

So he he's doing an amazing job with his team at Big Three, uh again, not just for St.

Petersburg residents, but uh for world visitors and for people throughout the Tampa Bay region, which is a hundred mile radius, is he's pulling people to St.

Petersburg for his shows and uh and again creating a uh competition that without him uh I'm concerned that the uh the theater would would be a dark venue.

So thank you very much for your time.

Thank you.

And and if I may interrupt, I apologize.

I I um I did not mention that Ignacio Barone and Lori Osborne from the Florida Orchestra are here as well, so I apologize for thank you.

Council members, Councilmember Gabbard.

Well, I was waiting to see if anyone else had anything to say about the Mahaffey, um, but I guess not.

So I will uh go ahead and get us started, and maybe some others will feel the need to chime in.

Um so Beth, let's just start with um I guess the RFP that you are prepared to bring forward.

Um so looked through that, and I just want to make sure that I understand.

So that is a five-year RFP, is that correct?

We uh we've only just begun with the draft, and again, I we just met with legal today, so we would look we would look for up to up to five years, yes.

Okay, that's why I talked about the 2829 renovation being a pencil in because clearly that would impact the RFP.

Okay, and a lot of moving parts and pieces.

Absolutely.

And I think you know, I'm looking at the kind of comparison and I appreciate the story guide here to kind of walk us through all of the different steps of the negotiation.

Understanding that um where big three landed and their final counter proposal was a three-year extension.

Two-year ext.

Oh, three years, yes, three years.

Yes, correct.

And then our counter was to September 2028.

Right.

Um, I think you know my biggest concern, my biggest fear is that we are going to to the gentleman that spoke that you know we're gonna run out of time here on an RFP, a selection, um, potentially you know, causing there to be issues with even having shows uh ready to go on September 3rd or October 1st.

Um, because as I understand it, and and Mr.

Edwards is here, maybe um he can come up and speak to this.

I don't believe, unless something has changed in the last couple of weeks, that you're continuing to book past your current agreement.

Um so that is of a huge concern to me.

If this relationship severs, um, certainly, I mean, are we able to get someone to apply for an RFP that is going to be any better of a deal than we have here?

Um, you have looked at other places that have um brought in new promoters and new um operators.

Can you talk a little bit about what we think we might experience if we do go out for RFP?

Well, it's difficult to gauge at this point.

I mean, the the entertainment um environment is is quite different than it was even a few years ago.

And I would like to point out that and and I and I think Bill will attest, we believe that big three is doing a good job.

So it there's it's not a uh necessarily that we're dissatisfied with where we are now.

So I want to make sure that they hear that and recognize that.

So there are a few things.

There would be we we do believe that there would be um not a lot, we've never had a lot of respondents to any of these, but that we would have you know several respondents to it.

Um, and uh the orchestra has expressed interest.

Big three has expressed that they would um uh potentially submit a bid as well.

Um, and then there are some different operators across the country that um that we that could um submit a uh you know a proposal.

Um, I think for us uh one of the decision making points is that we're coming up on 15 years, and the and the we we just couldn't get to a place that we felt was a reasonable uh increase um given the timing, given the budget, given all sorts of given all sorts of reasons.

Right, and I really think timing is the issue here, right?

Um, so you know, I'd like to personally, I would like to continue to try to reach an agreement.

Um three years, two years, whatever that may look like to give us time to really work on that CIP plan, making sure that we are able to do the kind of repairs and maintenance that we need to do to the facility, um, moving that forward.

I mean, obviously we've budgeted for the roof this year, but seven million dollars um, and you know, there could be potentially more as that time period continues to move forward.

I just worry um that you know, we're gonna go out for an RFP on a asset that needs a lot of maintenance, a lot of work, there's a lot of costs that is already associated with this.

That um, you know, we're having these conversations in the sunshine.

So anybody that replies is going to know all of this.

I'm just really hard pressed to think that we are going to find someone who is first of all would be okay with a very short period, five years really, I think is not a very long period of time, and um is going to bring us anything more desirable than what we can get with a partner who we know is tried and true, at least for the short interim.

And then at that point in time, it gives us more opportunity not only to build our CIP budget, but then to also really be deliberate with an RFP, because I don't want this to be rushed because we are out of that time.

Um, so I see that a couple of my other colleagues have chimed in, so I would love to hear what they have to say.

Uh, but I really am hopeful that by the end of this conversation that we can have some consensus around continuing to try to move forward with negotiations versus RFP at this time.

Um, but ultimately we'll we'll see how that goes.

So I'll go ahead and sorry, I'll go ahead and pause for now.

And if I may, I mean, as as I mentioned to you, um, Councilmember Gabbard, I you know, I I you know I really did think we would come to an agreement, and so I take full responsibility for this getting to for us being in November and being in this place, but on the flip side, I would say this is absolutely not ideal.

It would be challenging, but I think if there's one thing we've learned over the last year, is that this city, this administration, this council, the staff, we we can do hard things.

So if that's what we need to do, then we will certainly do it to the best of our ability.

Understood.

Thank you.

Councilmember Driscoll.

Thank you, and thank you for the presentation and for being so thoroughly thorough in your description of the events that led up to this point.

Um, before I uh go into this, I actually want to thank our friends from the Florida Orchestra for being the responsible organization that brought Sting to the Mahaffey Theater.

It was fantastic, and um it really says a lot about what you are able to do.

Um, and that was just one of quite a few extraordinary performances.

The story that you that you have shown us of the negotiations is really it's really helpful, it provides a lot of insight into how we got to where we are right now, and also all of the work that you have put in and and all that the city has offered along the way, and um yet that still wasn't enough, and so I can understand why you would want to go to RFP after that point because you have to do you have to give a deadline, and you um sometimes in negotiations, you have to stay strong, right?

And this doesn't mean that big three would not be able to respond to the RFP and submit a proposal and um put those same numbers in there and see how that works out compared to other proposers.

Um to me, it um creates a fair process.

I look at the timeline, I think that works.

Um there is a lag in um bookings, I think that's when you schedule time for repairs, renovations.

We we're going to have to um be flexible with that anyway.

So I think there's a way to get that worked out, and this particular timeline is not set in stone, and you could have um a much easier time with your selection process than you anticipate, and negotiations might be smoother than you anticipate.

I mean, that's best case, you know, when when something's tricky, I I like to ask what's the best that can happen, right?

So um I trust that you'll be able to uh move forward with this in the right way.

I did see the draft proposal or the draft of the RFP.

And I thought about the letter that we were copied on that the Florida Orchestra CEO sent to um Mayor Welch a few weeks ago talking about their negotiations and how difficult that was.

And you know, we have it's very specific in our agreement with Big Three that the Florida Orchestra is to be prioritized, and to see the the letter, I hope everyone read it that explained what that looks like in reality.

Um request, if you will, um, for consideration is to make sure that the language in the resulting agreement.

I mean, however you want to put it in the in the RFP is fine, but I think that there needs to be something more in the RFP that demonstrates how important the Florida Orchestra is to a successful agreement, and then when it's time to do the agreement, um I I'm quite certain that that's going to be stronger because the agreement is like 15 years old, so we do things a little different now, and I would like to see um the I mean, depending on how this goes, the Florida Orchestra language in the agreement needs to be more specific so that we can make sure that no one decides to interpret it a different way.

You know what I mean?

Yes, I hear you.

Yeah, and then um I I think it's uh great that there's an opportunity here.

It includes the plaza, and I have for a long time wanted to see more activity there.

So um thank you for continuing to include that.

There is um a little a little concern about the maintenance and repairs, the renovations that are needed.

Councilmember Gaver brought it up earlier.

That we I don't know how that's going to be shared because we're not we're we wouldn't be handing over a perfect product.

It's it's not in its top shape right now.

But I'm interested to see, and if you don't know right now, if you guys are still working on that language.

Okay, because I'm I'm interested to see like how do you split that up with a new partner?

Yeah, it's not easy.

But I I have a lot of faith in um this process, um, bringing forward the best, even if it's the same.

It will just reinforce the fact that we had the right partner all along.

Or maybe we start um on we start a new chapter.

So looking forward to the next step.

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

By sure, Henries.

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, Beth, for your report, and thank you, Councilmember Gabbard, for requesting a more comprehensive report.

Look, I've said it before in meetings, and I'm gonna repeat it again.

Um, when you look at the history of the site, um, it was opened in 1965, it was renovated in 1987.

That's 20 years, and they spent 20 plus million plus another million dollars back in 2087.

Then it was renovated again in 2005, and now we're in 2025.

So those numbers are large numbers in terms of a renovation.

These are not small, this is not a thing that you're gonna do easily in the next six months.

Correct, right?

So, and it is concerning to me because the reality is when the last time we did a renovation, it was after it was renovated that we went for RFP, which to me is what makes sense.

Frankly, if you're renting a place to someone and it's all it needs a ton of repair, and your tenant has been working with you for a long time, maybe because they like that it they're paying less or whatever the arrangement is between the landlord and the tenant, and they're there for a long time.

You don't just all of a sudden like, you know what, we're done, and then fix it, and then somebody else benefits from it.

I I'm just like there is to me something wrong with that, and put aside the parties.

It doesn't matter who the parties are, let's just put aside whoever's been there.

If you own property, you have to maintain it, and to me, as a city, that is our responsibility.

And the idea of bringing in possibly somebody else, I don't know how this is gonna work.

I'm not gonna get into how y'all should negotiate.

That's your that's what you do.

It comes to me, I say yes or no.

That's it.

But for me, it's something that is gonna be incredibly important because somebody else may take that RFP and say, Yes, we're gonna do this and not realize all that they're getting into in terms of maintenance and everything else that's going on and whatever their plans are, and so I think it's extremely important for us to have a plan and figure out what we're gonna do in terms of our maintenance and fixing it.

I mean, this is a renovation that needs to be done.

We all agree that the mahathy is important, and our city, we are all sitting here planning for other things and all the other things we're gonna do in the city, and then we gotta take care of the stuff we have, whether it's the marina or the mahathy, it's just a fact, and it's it's great to come up with new things, but here's the thing is maintaining it.

It's so easy to say I have a new idea, I don't know whatever program it is, and it's the cost of maintaining that program, it's a cost of maintaining the facility, whatever that may be, and you know, this is the reality that we deal with, and I agree, like it's hard, and I I I sympathize with administration because the reality is we have all these sorts of facilities that we have to maintain in our city, so it is challenging, but you know, I think there is a path, and I do think there is money in the downtown TIFF to somehow figure something out.

There are ways that we have figured it out before, whether you know, borrowing state money, whatever that looks like in terms of figuring out the financial package for paying for it.

I think we can do it.

We all agree the mahathi is important, and then if somebody else matches, fine.

But I mean, it'll be offline for I mean, once you're renovating, how long does that take?

A renovation like this, a full renovation.

I think the last time we were offline for a year, maybe a slightly more.

So, I mean, that's important.

Yeah, but I would figure it would be that, and so if we have work with someone, I don't know, to me, it just made much easier to go through that process and figure this out.

And I don't know what the sticking points are, but all those things I think probably can be fixed out and then coming up with a plan for the mahathy.

Putting aside whatever.

I just don't know about bringing someone else in.

And then we have a full renovation.

That is a ton of work and having a facility offline for a year.

So those are just my two cents.

But you know what?

You're doing negotiation, not me.

So I'm not in that room.

Well, and I don't disagree with any of your points, and the sticking point really is financial.

Right.

I I get it.

That was the sticking point.

I I understand that that's a sticking point.

I also understand that their group has also put in money into the facility for a long time.

I don't know if another group is gonna do the same during the process, and that's a consideration.

I don't I don't know.

And maybe it doesn't come to an agreement and that's where we are at.

We're here to hear what our two cents are, whatever mine may be worth.

It's just my opinion.

I'm this one person here, but so thank you.

Thank you for the I I appreciate all the work, Beth.

I know you're very you're very um detail oriented in what you do, and I really do appreciate it.

So thank you.

Thank you.

Councilmember Harding.

Thank you, Chair.

Beth, the let me back up a step.

The and I apologize, I'm not familiar enough.

What is the the or do we know or do we have an opinion on the actual useful life of the building?

It's uh it's what 60 years old now.

So is it uh are we clear that it can continue to be renovated or is it something that that m that we've looked at and might become a a knockdown or or I no, I I mean I'm not an engineer, but in doing the facility assessment, really the they're urgent there are no structural, urgent structural needs.

So the facility structural structurally um is fine and and we could certainly renovate it and and continue to operate it.

Okay.

So with that, with uh building on on uh on Vice Chair Hanowitz, do we have uh a any time any type of plan or timeline or thoughts on on when that next renovation might um be presented, council, or when we might look at doing it, how far off it is?

Well, again, I I penciled in the late 2028, 2029, but we're uh looking at the CRA funds.

Obviously, we've got to take table two back with the when any of those changes.

Um we've already uh met with uh uh some members of the state delegation, um, and we know that the uh uh TDC funding application comes out in February, so we're looking at um applying for that.

So it's a little bit difficult for me.

I can say it wouldn't be any earlier than that for sure.

Okay.

And um and contractually, is the is the tenant is big three responsible for any of the CIP or do we uh uh how is that big three is responsible for repair and maintenance, which is defined not defined, that's a different definition.

CIP are or are things over 50,000 and above with a uh uh useful life of over a year, they're responsible for the repair and maintenance of the facility up to 275,000 dollars annually, and then the city comes in beyond that and pays for anything beyond that each year.

Okay, and less and in our proposal we were uh in our final proposal we were reducing that from 275,000 to 150,000.

So big three would have been responsible for doing the first 150,000.

So that's you know, just your your um contracts on your air conditioning and your contracts on your elevator elevator maintenance and plumbing things that happen.

So we were reducing that from 275 to 150.

And um, and back to that that agreement, how how are ongoing um escalators with uh with with things like uh property taxes?

Is that so property taxes uh big three has paid us um since I believe let me get my notes since the initial the initial agreement uh I'm not sure spoke to it, but in 2016, um what we what they pay now dates back to the 2016 agreement as far as property insurance and city overhead.

So that's a total of 146,434 with with a hundred thousand going towards property insurance, which Blaze didn't give me the number, but it doesn't cover the entire amount that the city pays, and then the remaining going towards the overhead of city development administration, EFD, our accounting, and things like that.

So that number has remained stagnant since 2016, and we were not um uh we did not propose increasing that at all.

So that remained the same.

Okay.

And and back to it, in in the confines of of that agreement.

Um property insurance.

Um is that is that handled by the by big three or the tenant, or is that property insurance is through the city, and and I don't think Blaze is here, but I could certainly get you more information.

Big three has their general liability and and uh those types of of alcohol uh liquor liability, those types of operating insurance requirements.

Okay.

All right.

Um that that gives me enough to go on.

I appreciate it.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Councilmember Floyd.

Thank you.

Uh I put myself on here for two reasons.

One already got covered, though.

Uh, I was gonna ask about the TDC stuff.

Um I think there's opportunity there for us, and so I'm glad to hear uh y'all are just waiting for it to open up again in February.

So uh look forward to learning more about that as time comes, because I feel pretty good about it.

Uh then the second thing was just to give my two cents, I guess, uh, which are probably worth about two cents.

Um and I'm sorry that we're in this position, is the first thing I want to say.

And I want to thank you for a detailed um report and uh good chunk of information on the subject.

Uh I understand where everybody's coming from, like uh to put it out to bid right now when we know we're gonna be doing a renovation is a lot, but uh I struggle to see how we don't put it out to bid if we're getting a hundred percent increase.

Uh and but I do want to thank Big Three for also putting in their letter to us that if it goes out to bid that they will bid on it.

That actually brings me comfort because if the if it ends up that you know no one else is going to care for it the way we don't staff doesn't feel that no one uh no one else that bids understands the intricacies of the building or is taking it seriously enough, then we can revert back to big three, and so that brings me some comfort through a bid process.

And so uh I'm don't feel great about literally any of the paths forward, but I understand why staff took the tact that they did, and and I think I'll just leave it there.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Um I'm trying to stay in my lane.

Um I would agree with pretty much everything council member Floyd said.

I understand where we're at.

Frankly I I again I appreciate what Big Three does, but then when I look at this chart, I get it.

Like we just we talked last la last week about enterprises and how we want the enterprise funds to operate, and I appreciate that we're talking about like landlord tenant relationship.

We're we're paying them to be in the building, not the opposite way.

And so I don't get me wrong, I I like big three.

I I I kids were just there two weeks ago with their kids' programs.

But the what what's in front of us just doesn't seem tenable.

And so um I'm gonna stay in my lane.

And that's um so thank you for the update.

This was super helpful, especially the way you laid it out, Beth.

So thank thank you for that very much.

And um looking forward to seeing what happens on next steps.

Thank you.

Okay, council members, we're gonna continue to rock and roll, and we're gonna go to public hearings at this point.

And so I'm gonna slow play this a little bit because I'm gonna give Aaron a minute because I'm not sure he was knowing I was gonna jump to uh to J 1.

So why don't we go ahead and read the title, please on J 1?

Excuse me.

Propose ordinance number 623H in ordinance in accordance with section 1.02 C3, St.

Petersburg City Charter authorized authorizing the grant of a public utility easement to Duke Energy Florida LLC, Florida Limited Liability Company, DBA Duke Energy within city owned property located at 1160 62nd Avenue Northeast St.

Petersburg, Florida.

Authorized the mayor is designated to execute all documents necessary to effectuate this ordinance and providing an effective date.

And we do not have any cards, Mr.

Chair.

Move approval.

Second.

We have a motion and second on J 1.

Seeing as no other council members wishing to speak, clerk please open the machine for voting.

Council members, please enter your votes.

Seeing as all present council members have voted.

Clerk, please tally and announce the vote.

Mr.

Chairmotion to approve a genitum J1 passage unanimously, with Council Member Driscoll being absent.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

We're gonna move into J two.

And if anybody that is going to speak as staff comes out, anybody that's gonna speak on J two, if you'd please stand and be sworn in.

Raise your right hand for me.

Do you swear affirm it?

The whole truth, but you please read the title.

Not always, so I'm glad you're there.

In ordinance of the city of St.

Petersburg, Florida, designating the first church of the Nazarene, located at 1225 Ninth Avenue North.

As a locally historic landmark and adding the property to the St.

Petersburg Register of Historic Places pursuant to Section 16.30.070 city code and providing an effective date, and we do not have any cars, Mr.

Chair.

Okay, all right.

Thank you, Clerk.

Now we're gonna go on a presentation.

Each party will have 10 minutes for their initial presentation.

We'll begin with city staff.

Welcome.

Evening, Chair and City Council members.

Cindy Kohanick, historic preservationist with the city of St.

Petersburg.

This project is a review of a local landmark designation for the first church of the Nazarene located at 1225 9th Avenue North.

This local designation was owner initiated, and the community planning and preservation commission recommended approval for this application at their October meeting.

The first church of the Nazarene is located at the southern edge of the Euclid St.

Paul neighborhood.

The first church of the Nazarene in St.

Petersburg was organized in 1932 and held services in various locations throughout the city during the 1930s and the 1940s, including originally meeting at the City Mission Hall, located at 634 2nd Avenue South, shown here.

First Church of the Nazarene Building is located at the southwest corner of land that was originally part of the James Henry residence, which is a local designated landmark.

James Henry was an early settler in this area of the city.